Racial profiling at Pitt

In January 2001, Student Government Board passed a 10-point resolution to fight racial… In January 2001, Student Government Board passed a 10-point resolution to fight racial profiling on Pitt’s campus and asked the administration to “condemn” racial profiling. Following the resolution, administrators and students held a series of meetings to determine the proper actions to be taken to combat racial profiling.

However, according to former SGB member Jay Dworin, not all of the measures were put into action, and recent accusations of racial profiling have led SGB, other student groups and the administration to readdress the issue.

The 2001 board’s Resolution 0001 defined racial profiling as “any action taken by law enforcement officials prior to or during a person’s contact with the legal system that is based upon racial or ethnic stereotypes and that has the effect of treating a person of a minority group differently than that of the non-minority.”

Through the 10 points, SGB sought to have a system for collecting data about students the Pitt police came in contact with, which police would make public, to require police to provide students with their business cards that would inform students of their rights on the back, and to have minority groups work closely with the Pitt police.

In February 2001, Black Action Society and SGB brought Rev. Al Sharpton to speak at Pitt about racial profiling in order to gain attention, Dworin said. Before Sharpton was invited, administration did not have time to talk to students. However, once they heard of Sharpton’s visit, they became willing to speak, according to Dworin.

Sharpton’s visit was the lead story for all of the TV news’ broadcasts, he said.

“That’s what [the administration] couldn’t stand,” he said.

Following the visit, a group of student leaders and administrators led by then-Vice Provost and Interim Dean of Students Jack Daniel met during March and April 2001 to develop “implementation strategies” for SGB’s 10 points, according to a memo Daniel sent to the committee members and senior administrators Feb. 26, 2001.

Following the final meeting, Daniel wrote in his April 24, 2001, memo that the committee had “agreed upon courses of action” for implementation of the 10-point system.

After the 2001 summer break, Daniel told Dworin he was not able to enforce their agreements and further questions should be directed to Executive Vice Chancellor Jerome Cochran.

Last semester, the current SGB passed Resolution 0013, reiterating SGB’s support for the continued fight against racial profiling.

According to SGB member Andrea DeChellis, SGB passed the resolution because of recent allegations by students of racial profiling. She could not comment on the specific allegations for privacy reasons.

Resolution 0013 states, “We [SGB] recognize that the administration entered into an agreement with students and SGB and did not fulfill the terms of the agreement.”

According to DeChellis, he has not spoken to SGB about racial profiling.

Cochran and Chancellor Mark Nordenberg had been given copies of the letters before the meetings began, when Daniel was appointed the head of the committee, and they were sent copies of the minutes from each meeting, Dworin said, so Daniel should have represented the entire administration.

According to a memo from Daniel on April 24, 2001, Pitt police would “examine the best practices at other schools for collecting, analyzing and disseminating” statistical information to help determine if racial profiling existed among Pitt police. “I made it clear that the results would not be disseminated in a public fashion,” Daniel wrote in the memo.

According to a letter from Cochran and Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor James Maher sent Dec. 5, 2002, to The Pitt News, there is a system of analysis currently in place and that they are “willing to disclose the number of student arrests and the percentage of those arrests that involve African-Americans. It would not be appropriate, whether charges are found to be unfounded or strong disciplinary actions are taken, to make public the details of individual employment decisions.”

DeChellis said other schools, such as Carnegie Mellon University, make their police statistics public.

“Simply disseminating this information would clear up the issue,” she said.

BAS Vice President Cynthia Gordy said she did not believe that all officers profile, or that profiling was just a police issue.

Pitt police Chief Tim Delaney did not want to comment on the issue of racial profiling because it “doesn’t exist in our [police] department.”

The committee also “agreed that if a police officer initiates contact with someone, and [the individual] asks for identification, that officer is to provide his/her identification card,” according to the April 24, 2001, memo. The card would have the officer’s information and another University official on it in case the individual being interrogated wanted to “contact another office of the University besides the police.”

Originally, the 10 points included students’ rights printed on the back of the card. It was not implemented, but the committee agreed to print that information in the “For Safety’s Sake” brochure.

Currently, Pitt police are required to give students their business card – or badge number if they do not have a card – when it is requested. The card has the officer and Delaney’s contact information on it.

However, at a public safety forum held last semester, DeChellis said police officers do not always provide students with the cards.

The committee also agreed that Pitt police would meet with members of subcommittees of BAS and other minority groups as part of an outreach program, according to the April 24, 2001, memo.

At the forum, Pitt police Commander Kathy Schrieber said Pitt police had sent out an e-mail to every student organization asking them to reply if they would like to meet with the police.

BAS representatives at the forum said they had never received such an e-mail.

According to BAS Political Action Chair Raheem Dawson, the BAS secretary later looked through all of BAS’s e-mails, including deleted messages and found no record of the e-mail Schrieber said was sent.

Dworin said if the police, whom are under Cochran’s administration, wanted to meet with black students, someone would have come up to BAS’s office. BAS representatives have not gone to the police because they feel threatened, he said.

“Jerome Cochran does not care enough about black students,” Dworin said. “In fact, he cares so little that he is willing to send a black administrator to meetings with students to lie to his own people.”

“I feel for Dr. Daniel,” Dworin said. “I feel that he got set up so that he could be the one to lie to the black students, to lie to his own people.” He added that Daniel was set up “unknowingly.”

Not accepting all of the plan, Dawson said, was “a real slap in the face of students.”

“It’s a real shame; the administration should be ashamed of itself,” he said.

Presidents of BAS and other minority groups sent a letter to Nordenberg after Resolution 0013 was passed.

Dworin said, “We needed to address the lying and lack of respect.”

Dawson said BAS was not ready to comment on the letter.

Nordenberg responded within two days with his own letter to SGB President Kevin Washo Jr. He wrote that the response was addressed to Washo because the minority groups’ original letter called SGB “the representative voice for all students.”

A copy of Nordenberg’s letter was also sent to BAS’s president “since the multi-organization letter was written on that group’s letterhead.”

DeChellis said that not responding directly to the groups’ presidents or to her and Mayes, who introduced the resolution, is “condescending and is consistent with how the administration treats us.”

“I know people were upset that the chancellor sent me the letter. I can see why they would be upset,” he said, but added that, “as a recognized governing body of the University of Pittsburgh, we’re going to get a response.”

According to Washo, the groups asked for SGB’s support in the fight against racial profiling, resulting in the board unanimously passing a resolution. However, the groups did not inform SGB about their letter to Nordenberg.

In their letter, “They talked about a resolution we passed,” Washo said. “I didn’t even know the letter was sent out. I wish I did.”

Washo added that he thought the chancellor was right in responding to him.

He also said that, after being informed of the letter, some SGB members voiced concerns to him, because SGB had wanted to work with BAS.

He said everyone involved with the process needs to acknowledge that it is going to take more than a few months for change to occur.

“The sooner people realize that, the sooner something will get done,” he said. “It is important for students to hold administration accountable [though] because this is our university.”

Washo said he was “encouraged” by Nordenberg’s letter.

“I’m just happy that the administration responded in a timely manner,” he said.

Nordenberg wrote, “Because I do want to be certain of my own understandings, I have asked Provost Maher, who initiated that earlier process, and Executive Vice Chancellor Cochran, to whom the Pitt police report, to re-examine the resolution and to compare it with our current procedures.”

“If the chancellor put two of his top administrators on this, then we have to give them a chance,” Washo said.

“I am 99.99 percent sure that some groups have a next step [planned], and I think it’s important for the Student Government Board to find out what they are because we put our names on the resolution,” Washo added.

It is always better to tackle an issue with many groups, he said.

Nordenberg also wrote in student leadership and the new leaders’ lack of knowledge about what has occurred since Resolution 0001, “could lead anyone to conclude that it had been discarded.” However, he wrote, “It remains my further understanding that most of the resolution’s “10 points” either already were a part of existing institutional practice or were implemented at that time.”

“The failure to reach complete agreements is a rather common occurrence and certainly is not a sign of disrespect, though that seems to be the nature of the charge that has been leveled here,” he wrote.

Mayes said the students were not trying to attack administrators, but address an issue.

“We don’t want to attack the system, we want to attack the problem,” she said.

Nordenberg continued, stating racial profiling is often defined as “prescribed law enforcement procedures” based on stereotypes.

“To my knowledge, there is no evidence of such profiling here,” he wrote.

Mayes responded by saying, “Of course it’s not to his knowledge because he’s not a black student.”

She added that students have brought up racial profiling issues at every SGB public meeting.

According to Mayes, minority students have reported to her they were “reduced to tears” after being interrogated by Pitt police. This fear and students’ beliefs that administration will not believe them causes students to not report profiling cases, she said.

Nordenberg refused to comment directly to a Pitt News reporter. Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs Robert Hill said Nordenberg is “more inclined to communicate directly to the student leadership.”

Last year BAS did not continue the anti-racial profiling campaign. Dawson said perhaps this was because students felt “disenfranchised” following the failure of the administration to adopt the 10-point plan.

“[Students were] waiting, holding their breath for administration to do something,” he said.

Representatives from the Pennsylvania House’s committee of education visited Pitt last year as part of a statewide campaign to hear about race relations on college campuses, Dawson said, but that the visit was not well-publicized by the administration and Pitt’s Governmental Relations Committee because many students did not hear about the event until a few days prior to the committee members’ visit.

“From the outside – it looks like they were hiding it,” he said.

BAS gathered testimonies from students who were victims of racial profiling, Gordy said. She added that many black freshmen wrote about being profiled while they were sitting in the Litchfield Towers Lobby; they were singled out and asked to show the police their IDs to prove they were students.

Dawson said, “It’s not a good feeling to be asked if you’re part of this University that you’ve worked hard to get in because of the color of your skin.”

In a prior interview, Hill said, “There is no racial profiling on the University of Pittsburgh’s campus.”

According to Dawson, as Pitt’s spokesperson, this response would be expected. However, he said that “racial profiling does exist – it’s quite evident” and that the administration acknowledged it as a problem when they established the working committee.

DeChellis said, “There’s a reason that Pitt was ranked 11th worst for racial and social class interaction by the Princeton Review [in the 2002 guidebook].”

Maher and Cochran were unavailable for comment.

Daniel said he would comment on the issue only after senior administrators released their statement on racial profiling; however, he was not in his office because of illness after winter break to comment.

Hill would not comment until after the statement by Maher and Cochran was printed.