In May, Communication senior Joshua Williams sent an e-mail across campus alleging that he had been racially profiled by Northwestern staff. The issue has since tumbled into a community-wide discussion on race relations at Northwestern, attracting the attention of top university officials.
“I was shocked and I wasn’t shocked at the same time,” said Associated Student Government President Mike McGee, commenting on the administration’s response. “Obviously, being a minority on campus, especially as a black student, it’s a pretty big problem. While the incident with Josh Williams may seem like a shock, there are 10 to 15 other ones that I know of.”
On June 9, University President Henry Bienen and Provost Daniel Linzer sent a formal statement to all students, faculty and staff, referring to the incident as “cause for serious concern for the entire Northwestern University community.”
The statement introduced the idea of an advisory board that would work with University Police beginning in the 2009-10 academic year.
Thus far, however, many multicultural student group leaders said they have not been contacted about the creation of a board.
Vice President of Student Affairs William Banis, University Spokesman Al Cubbage, Executive Director of Multicultural Student Affairs Carretta Cooke and representatives from UP all declined to comment, while Linzer and Bienen were unavailable.
The idea of an independent advisory board arose during a racial profiling forum hosted by the Multicultural Center in May, said Marrion Johnson, coordinator of For Members Only, NU’s largest black student group.
“We wanted a committee that would accept complaints from students who were profiled and hold police officers accountable,” the Communication junior said. “Students aren’t going to complain to the police officers who profiled them.”
McGee, a Communication senior, met with Provost Linzer in June to discuss the university’s response to the incident.
“Right now, students feel like these incidents aren’t being heard or being followed up on,” he said. “Linzer didn’t really know about these either, so it’s not reaching where it needs to reach.”
Although many students say racial profiling is a widespread problem on campus, the Office of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and Disability Services has received “few” complaints regarding racial profiling incidents, said Pamela Pirtle, the office’s director.
“I think students may not know where to go to make formal complaints, which is either directly with the police or with our office,” Pirtle said. “The advisory board is going to play a significant role in bringing forth the concerns of students.”
A key motivation for creating the advisory board was to give students another channel to file complaints aside from approaching UP, who may be incapable of impartially evaluating the situation, said Keeanga Taylor, who helped organize the racial profiling forum.
“There has to be an independent process by which racial profiling complaints are evaluated,” the African American Studies graduate student said. “Police are left to police themselves, which we think is inadequate, and that’s part of the reason why no Northwestern police have been disciplined for racial profiling.”
Racial profiling extends far beyond the NU community, said Arianna Hermosillo, president of Alianza, NU’s largest Hispanic/Latino student organization.
“It’s just part of a larger problem we face as a society,” the Medill senior said. “My own brothers have been racially profiled and physically abused by police in my own community, so it’s not just isolated at NU.”
Asian Pacific American Coalition President Amy Zhu said Williams’s alleged incident was the first “blatant example of racial profiling” she’d heard of at NU and said awareness played a crucial role in solving the problem.
“With things like racial profiling, people don’t talk about it because it’s an uncomfortable issue, and we want to think we’ve come a long way from the days of segregation and the 1960s,” the Weinberg senior said. “But, that avoidance just pushes the issue aside.”
Taylor attributed the problem to police officers who are trained to be vigilant in every situation, calling racial profiling a “crisis” on campus. She suggested that UP meet with students from multicultural organizations on a regular basis to hear stories from students directly in order to “humanize the issue.”
“Even if the police are black, they’re trained to look for people who they suspect don’t belong at an elite, private institution,” she said. “In this society, African-American and Latino students at private institutions raise questions.”
While racial profiling on campus may not have a clear solution, the advisory board is a good starting point, McGee said.
“This won’t be the end-all-be-all or the magic solution to the problem because it’s a long, ongoing problem,” he said. “But I think it’s a step in the right direction.”
