Smith College employees calls police on student

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Thinking like an epidemiologist here:

So we have two groups here arguing two different counterfactuals, neither of which by definition can be known in this specific case.

One group is claiming, “Had the student not been black/POC, the Smith employee would not have called the cops”, and thus concluding that racial bias, explicit or implicit, was at play.

Another group is claiming, “the employee was concerned about the student’s actions (i.e., lounging on a sofa in a lounge after a meal in a dining hall in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer) seeming `out of place’ and therefore initiated a reasonable call to security, and would have done so regardless of student’s race.”, and thus concluding that the student (and her supporters) are overreacting and that this is “yet another” case of crying foul or playing the race card without evidence.

So, again, due to the space-time continuum we are currently subject to, we cannot know the outcome of the actual counterfactual: what would have happened had the student been, say, white or Asian? We can, however, construct a credible counterfactual in several ways: One easy way would be to gather a representative sample of similar calls to campus security from a sample of similar colleges. That is, calls to security having to do with someone appearing to be in the wrong place, not belonging on campus, not being a student, etc. but not actually engaged in any threatening, dangerous or illegal activity. We can record the race of the people about whom these security calls were made, and compare this to the racial makeup of the student body or the entire campus community. If the odds ratio for (POC/majority race | security was called while going about daily business)/(POC/majority race| campus population) is positive, large and statistically significant, this would support (not provide causal evidence, I understand that) the hypothesis that people are more likely to call security when the person carrying on the “suspicious activity” is a POC.

It is also possible to simulate similar scenarios in carefully-designed lab and field experiments. In fact, there is a long history and a large evidence base of rigorous work in this space. The preponderance of the evidence very strongly supports implicit racial bias that shapes perceptions of risk and likelihood of taking defensive or offensive action.

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Sounds like a good thesis project for someone. I’m exhausted just reading through it, and you didn’t cover the other variables here-a historically female college, and potential gender confusion by the caller. Presumably one would need to control for that too, as well as for the age of the subject of interest. I would imagine all males, particularly young males, engender more concern, regardless of race, than women, but maybe not. Similarly less concern with the very young and the middle aged or older, regardless of race, but again, maybe not. It would be an interesting project. The all female aspect of the college is a difficult twist, I think.

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“Another group is claiming, “the employee was concerned about the student’s actions (i.e., lounging on a sofa in a lounge after a meal in a dining hall in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer) seeming `out of place’ and therefore initiated a reasonable call to security, and would have done so regardless of student’s race.”, and thus concluding that the student (and her supporters) are overreacting and that this is “yet another” case of crying foul or playing the race card without evidence.”

No. The “other group” is claiming that Smith’s own rules told staff to call the police “immediately” if they felt anything somehow seemed suspicious , even if they could not articulate why, and to do so in all such matters “no matter how insignificant”. And that given those rules it is brutally unfair to suspend the employee who called when seeing a man who was seen lying down in a building that was reported to be otherwise empty at that point.

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Roycroftmom, I am NOT of course assuming the caller was white. As pointed out by at least one other person, the caller could be of any race, and the same question still stands - WHAT exactly was suspicious? What made the caller uncomfortable enough that it warranted calling security rather than simply having the courtesy to ask the person why they were there.

Why do you keep assuming that police won’t be called by employees in the future? They should call when there is a potential threat. They should not call when it is reasonable to at least first ask the person why there are there. If you mean they will no longer call the police because the see someone on the couch, then I think that would be a good thing.

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“WHAT exactly was suspicious”.

Smith’s safety rules indicated that someone deciding to call the police did NOT need to be able to answer that question. Just the feeling that a man lying down in an otherwise empty building seemed weird was all that was necessary to be guided by the instructions to " call the police immediately" if you feel something is suspicious even if you don’t know exactly why you feel that way.

It’s one thing to rethink whether that’s a good rule. It’s another to vilify a person who was told to follow that rule.

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After many years of living in big cities, I would not approach a stranger to inquire as to their purpose, and I certainly would tell my daughters not to do so. Way too many people are drunk, stoned, psychotic, violent, etc etc. Can’t tell the possible reaction, or the potential danger of the situation. I would prefer my kids call to alert authorities of a potential threat, but most importantly, take care of themselves first. Get away from the situation.

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If someone is prone (not necessarily consciously) to seeing suspicion mainly based on the race of the person seen, then that is a situation where such a rule, which could be seen as sensible by itself, gets abused (not necessarily consciously) into wasting police resources and adding to the unfriendly treatment of people of that race.

Lots of rules may be sensible on their own, but if they are applied in a racist or otherwise undesirable manner, the result can be quite undesirable (except to those who want racism to increase).

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UCBalumnus your statement is a bit self evident. Obviously sensible rules when applied in a racist way elicit highly undesirable results. Anything motivated by racism is abhorrent.

Ok so we agree. We still have no idea what the caller thought they were seeing and what raised the concern. To date we only have vague descriptions and or people drawing personal conclusions.

One of the worst offenses committed against people whom majorities seek to marginalize is a rush to judgement based on preexisting bias. That is exactly what anyone who concludes the caller acted based on race is doing. The facts may prove it was race based in which case I have little sympathy but those are facts not in evidence.

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How about those who appear to deny any possibility that the motivation was race-related?

Yes, we do not know for sure what the motivation was. But, just as it would be reckless to claim for certain that it was based on race, it would also be reckless to claim for certain that it was not.

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UCBalumnus but you don’t win an argument by pursuing moral equivalence and saying I am equally as wrong as the other side.

Regrettably there are plenty of cases were racism is the driving force and proven. This is not one of them yet (and may never be). Why the rush to push ones agenda on the part of both those that claim it was and wasn’t race based.

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One could have had a thoughtful inquiry into the case, without a rush to judgment, by notifying the appropriate Dean at Smith and pursuing the matter. I believe it highly likely Smith would have taken it seriously and conducted a competent internal investigation, and greater understanding might have ensued by both sides. Sadly, that is not the path the student pursued.

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They hired a law firm because the college has potential liability from their handling of the employee.

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Unlikely,momofthreeboys. In house counsel routinely handle employee suits at universities. More likely they hired a law firm to signal how seriously they were taking the student complaints and to try to avoid protests in the fall.
I think one of the central misunderstandings is how people view being asleep or passed out on a sofa in public. For some, that seems to be an ordinary event which should be ignored by all. For others, it could be a warning sign of trouble which merits further investigation. I would want campus police to check out such an event at my kids college, because it could be such a sign of trouble. Being unconscious in a public space is really not a good idea for many reasons, including becoming a target of crime.

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Why do you expect for only the student to have “taken the high road”? Why not the caller as well?

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Entities never conduct investigations into processes and situations like these internally. I would bet a dozen brownies that the outside firm is conducting such an investigation and will provide a report and recommendations in due course.

Many entities do not handle employee suits in house. Some do, but many absolutely do not.

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I think the caller may very well have taken the high road, sciencenerd. It is way easier to ignore this than to step into this morass, right? The caller doesn’t get any reward, monetary or otherwise, for reporting something. As we see from this thread, there is only downside, not upside. So no, I don’t think very many calls will be made in the future-why should anyone, when it only puts them at risk? There is absolutely no incentive to do so, and even a well intentioned call may be misjudged (recognizing that we don’t know the intent of the call in this case). You may regard that as a good thing-maybe we should all ignore passed out adults, and only intervene if the subject is obviously a child or elderly, and maybe not even then. We might lose a few chances to assist some folks, but it would avoid the whole controversy. For some, I guess that is worth it.

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“I think one of the central misunderstandings is how people view being asleep or passed out on a sofa in public.”

Also a potential minefield for colleges since either action or inaction carries risks.

  • Call security on a student who should legitimately be there and many will assume racism is a factor. Potentially alienate people. Risk unpleasant or even violent interaction.
  • Do nothing and it turns out the person was having a health issue (anything from anaphalactic allergic reaction to drug/alcohol OD) and dies. School employees are labeled as uncaring, liable for not getting student medical treatment.
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“Do nothing and it turns out the person was having a health issue (anything from anaphalactic allergic reaction to drug/alcohol OD) and dies. School employees are labeled as uncaring, liable for not getting student medical treatment.”

And if the person happened to be a POC there would be national headlines on how the racist employees refused to call for help because of the color of their skin. It’s a lose lose situation in this climate.

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Employees should call the police every time they see a student lying on a sofa with eyes closed?

How about they just ask the student if they are ok before calling police?

Would employees be more likely to check on my petite, fashionably dressed daughter with the long flowing blonde hair if concerned she might be ill? Would they be less likely to call police, stating that she looked “like she didn’t belong”? I don’t know for sure, depending on the individual involved, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she would be viewed with less suspicion if she were the one lying on the sofa instead of this student.

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“Employees should call the police every time they see a student lying on a sofa with eyes closed?”

As you pointed out, there are probably cases where an employee - based on their size relative to the size of the sleeper - decides that there is no safety risk in waking and checking on a sleeping/passed out person. There may be other times when the employee decides - based on their size relative to the size of the sleeper - that there might be a safety risk and instead calls campus security as described in the campus manual.

I wonder what most of us would advise our petite daughter to do if she were the employee and the sleeper/passed out person is a foot taller than her. Go ahead and give that possibly homeless drug addict a good shake - there should be no problem and it would be racist or socioeconomicalist (my own word!) to consider they might harm you.