Is UCSC a Safe Place to Protest? Initial Survey Data Suggests Otherwise
This recent survey (please take) of protest participants and observers in Santa Cruz reveals a clear trend: the prevailing perception is that it is comparatively not safe to protest on the UCSC campus. While the data comes with some uncertainty given the small sample size as of March 2nd, 2025, the signal is strong enough to report with relative confidence—only 3.92% of respondents identified UCSC as the safer protest location, while nearly half (49.0%) saw no meaningful difference between UCSC and off-campus areas, and 47.1% believed Santa Cruz (off-campus) was the safer option. The high margins of error suggest variability, but the overarching takeaway remains: very few people view UCSC as the safer choice. These findings highlight the need for deeper conversations about how protest safety is shaped by local policing strategies, campus policies, and broader political protest dynamics in Santa Cruz.
Key Takeaways
UCSC is widely perceived as unsafe for protest. Only 3.92% of respondents felt UCSC was the safer place to protest.
Off-campus locations are viewed as safer. Nearly half (47.1%) of respondents believed Santa Cruz (off-campus) provided a safer environment for protest.
Many see no difference. About 49.0% of respondents felt that UCSC and off-campus areas were equally (un)safe for protesting.
Margins of error are high. With a ±13.7% MOE for the two most common responses, perceptions vary but still show a strong signal that UCSC is not seen as a safe protest site.
Findings suggest a need for further investigation. The results raise important questions about the role of police presence, university policies, and broader political factors in shaping protest safety at UCSC.
The total number of respondents for the Santa Cruz Protesting and Policing survey is 85 respondents as of March 2nd, 2025 (survey launched February 15th, 2025). Additional respondents can be integrated into analysis at any time. The following analysis and visualization concerns respondents' impression about the perceived comparative safety of engaging in protest on or around the UCSC and in Santa Cruz City proper off campus. The question posed to respondents was "Where do you feel it is safer to engage in protest?" and the multiple choice response options provided were "both feel equally safe/unsafe", "SC city off campus" and "On or around the UCSC Campus." This question was one of the final questions in the survey, so respondents that exited the survey before completion are not included in this particular analysis. The sample size for this analysis, thus, is 51 respondents (N=51). Controlling for no other variables, the product of this analysis indicates that 49% (MOE=13.7) of respondents believed that both locations are equally safe/unsafe, 47.1%(MOE=13.7) of respondents believed that Santa Cruz City off campus is safer for protest and 3.9% (MOE=5.33) of respondents believed that UCSC is safer for protest.
The results indicate that perceptions of protest safety are nearly evenly split between those who believe Santa Cruz (off-campus) is safer (47.1%) and those who see no difference between the two locations (49.0%). However, the large margin of error (±13.7%) suggests that these estimates are uncertain and could vary significantly in either direction. Meanwhile, only 3.92% of respondents felt that the UCSC campus was the safer location for protesting, with a much smaller margin of error (±5.33%), reinforcing the idea that UCSC is not widely seen as a safer alternative. Given the high MOEs, additional data would be needed to draw more definitive conclusions about differences in perceived protest safety.
Future Research:
Future research can include breakdowns of location safety perceptions categorized by age, ethnicity, student status, past involvements in protest, etc.
Future research can include additional sample, as the survey remains live and in the field.
Future research can include an investigation into whether the perception of non-safety for protest on UCSC campus is correlated with perceptions about whether the respondent reported believing that local police behave in a generally escalatory fashion with protestors. In order to run a meaningful hypothesis test, additional sample must be accomplished.