Sometimes saying “I’m sorry” isn’t enough. University Police Chief Bruce Lewis’ forthcoming written apology to a black Feinberg School of Medicine student for what the student described as a racially motivated incident falls into that category.
Racial profiling is an insidious practice that does more harm than good. If the student’s account of the incident is true, the Northwestern community should demand better so no student feels afraid he or she could be mistaken for an intruder on campus.
A UP officer stopped the medical student, who asked that his name not be used to protect his privacy, Dec. 15 on the Chicago Campus. The officer reported seeing him leave an academic building at about 5 a.m. carrying several bags and a laptop.
He didn’t have a WildCARD and the officer could not verify his status through the online student directory. The student was only released an hour and a half after the ordeal began.
Chief Lewis told The Daily that an internal review showed the officer followed proper procedures, but the student said UP’s account of the situation is fundamentally flawed.
This is not the first time in recent memory when black NU students felt uncomfortable with police practices. In fall 2003, a rash of robberies and assaults near the Evanston Campus prompted security alerts on HereandNow that described suspects in vague but familiar terms: 18 to 20-something years old, black and male.
As Michael Collins, the coordinator of the black student alliance For Members Only and a Weinberg sophomore, told me, “That conveniently implicated every black male who went to Northwestern.”
Sometimes the descriptions included clothing, usually a hooded sweatshirt, the staple of most college students’ wardrobes. At least two black students told The Daily then that they had stopped wearing hoodies and walking around at night to avoid suspicion.
The police descriptions were so ambiguous, they did little, if anything, to help catch the perpetrators. And they lumped black male students with a public safety threat. Collins described it as a hysterical environment that black students still remember, though the hysteria subsided after the attacks.
Only with concerted effort can we prevent such an environment from returning.
Police and crime victims should include more detail in their descriptions or provide none at all in security advisories posted online. Broad descriptions only foster irrational fears.
Students also should develop greater understanding and interactions between often-segregated communities at NU. Someone who has never experienced the stigma of being a minority of some kind can begin to appreciate others’ feelings through the simple course of dialogue.
We may never know whether race figured into the detention of the medical student, but no student should be made to feel intimidated because of the color of his or her skin.
Elaine Helm is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected].
