When black Communication senior Joshua Williams was stopped three times in one day last spring while walking through the Donald P. Jacobs Center, the incident sparked intense discussion within the multicultural community about what Northwestern is doing to promote diversity and dissolve racial tensions. The situation was aggravated when a University Police officer stopped him a fourth time as he was leaving the Center and called in his WildCARD to verify he was a student.
Now, the involved parties are doing something about it.
Since the summer, Williams has met with William Banis, vice president for student affairs, and Bruce Lewis, chief of UP and associate vice president of public safety, to set up an advisory board that will deal with issues of race and community relations.
“The board and the police department are going to report together to try to improve relations with the community, work to solve issues and improve the overall understanding of the university police mission,” said Dan McAleer, UP deputy chief.
Kellyn Lewis of For Members Only has also been involved with the process. He said there will be a meeting next week with Chief Lewis, Tamara Johnson, the interim executive director of Multicultural Student Affairs and the Coalition of Colors, an alliance of minority student groups, to make progress toward the board’s creation.
“When we sit down to meet with Chief Lewis, we’re going to line out how he thinks the board should work, how we think the board should work, who should be involved,” the Weinberg sophomore said.
The board has the potential to change the relationship between the enforcer and the enforced – the parties also must decide what its relationship with the police department will be, Kellyn Lewis added.
“It’s going to be a process of figuring out if the board is going to do training for the police, look into cases or be a safe place for students,” he said.
Williams said he is still not satisfied but sees improvements.
“I think once we get discussions going, I’ll be happy,” he said.
