If people just used common sense it wouldn’t be that complicated as what you mention.
I’m looking at this as an employer having to weigh all the potential risks and issues with each choice.
Even the relatively benign sounding instruction to have an employee check on a seemingly passed out person has risks. In the example from the past few posts, if based on an employer policy the 100 pound cafeteria employee checks on a passed out person who turns out to be a large homeless guy who gets agitated and assaults her, again - that’s a problem.
It’s not an easy issue to try to encapsulate into an employee policy. Any course of action involves potential risk - to the employee, to the person sleeping/passed out, to the public, to campus security.
The caller did use common sense, to many of us, in this situation. Something seemed weird, so she followed the rules and notified authorities. The police used common sense in checking it out, determining there was no problem, and dropping the matter.
“If people just used common sense it wouldn’t be that complicated as what you mention.”
I don’t disagree with this statement. But does that common sense extend to people crying racism for every negative thing that happens to them. There is no way this incident should have risen to the level of national news.
I have no way of knowing whether or not the employee in question had a racial bias for calling the police on this young woman. But I am pretty surprised at the number of people who won’t even entertain that the possibility exists that this is what happened. Racism is pretty pervasive in our society, so it is beyond me why so many people are appalled that this is even being considered as a possible explanation.
I saw the interview with the student. She is not a large, imposing person AT ALL. The interview I saw said that she was lying on the sofa reading.
Of course it is possible. I haven’t seen anyone deny that. But it is the rush to judgment that racism is the only possible cause, and social media outrage, that is causing some of us to pause. Maybe had the students statements been more measured, the response would have been too.
I treated pretty much all the furniture on college campuses like they were my living room. We put up our feet. We occasionally fell asleep. Even if I thought a well dressed person with a book in their lap was homeless, most homeless people aren’t going to attack you. It’s not like the lobby of an office building. Twenty minutes after they stop serving food to be sitting in a lounge area of a building does not seem like an abnormal thing to be doing.
Do I call the police on this guy? http://dailycampus.com/stories/2017/3/23/lazy-boy-on-campus-cure-for-needing-sleep
Notre Dame has an article about the best places to nap on campus: https://thetab.com/us/notre-dame/2016/02/02/best-places-nap-campus-97
How about having plainclothes security people on campus for such situations, and have them check the suspicious person in a nonthreatening manner?
Regarding the “passed out due to alcohol or other drug overdose” possibility, it is not like this situation was Saturday late night at an alcohol fueled party. During the afternoon on a college campus, it is not unusual to see students in various places sleeping or reading.
Perhaps this ties into the paranoid overly worried helicopter parent phenomenon. If the police were called for every student sleeping or reading on campus, they would not have time to do anything else.
The CC hyperbole machine is working well on this thread! A napping female instructor is now a large male homeless drug addict. And a reasonable person is unable to tell the difference between the two. Happy to see some things on CC never change.
Reminds me of the thread about attire for orientation where I said my D wore running shorts. A half-dozen posts later I was being reprimanded for allowing my D to eat at Spagos in Beverly Hills in her underwear. At least she hasn’t been mistaken for a homeless drug addict yet by campus security!
"The CC hyperbole machine is working well on this thread! A napping female instructor is now a large male homeless drug addict. And a reasonable person is unable to tell the difference between the two. "
Ironic, since this statement is 9 out of 10 on the hyperbole scale. My use of a homeless drug addict example was not referring to the female instructor or any real person, it was an illustration of how difficult it is for employers/colleges to put rules and policies in place that cover the range of situations. People have made suggestions here on how colleges should mandate their employees handle a situation, so it’s reasonable to examine possible variants of the situation.
On a normal college day, sure kids are sprawled out in all of the usual places. Not sure this was a normal college day being in the middle of the summer. And may not even be a usual place for kids to chill. Too much is unknown to draw any reasonable conclusion. As if it will even matter.
@partyof5 I don’t think you can compare those terrible tragedies to this particular case. I asked my colleague, a black man, his opinion since I have no experience. His comments: Was she handcuffed? Was she physically assaulted by the police? Was she arrested? Did the cop treat her respectfully? Did he apologize for bothering her?
please see this article from one of the country’s more liberal main-stream newspapers:
Even liberal mainstream newspapers have conservative columnists. No one is arguing that the police behaved badly here.
It’s not the police officer’s behavior that is in question, it is the behavior of the person who called the police. It is a questions of the threshold of what is suspicious and what is not. The problem with any policy Smith or any other college might craft, there will always be the question of what a typical person considers suspicious vs. what an individual considers suspicious, and what bias might come into play. There can be no hard and fast rule, because of that variable.
I’m still confused as to what the basis was for suspending the caller. I may have missed that. Is it a suspension without pay?
Then why are you judging the caller? Because you think you wouldn’t have made the call, when you can acknowledge that there can be no hard and fast rule? When the handbook says to err on the side of caution, better to call and have it be nothing than the opposite?
There is certainly plenty of real world examples of bigotry and hatred out there to avoid having to find one.
And many of us are guilty of the same assumptions we are condemning. I thought the same thing when I heard about this, wow that’s racist.
But then I had to stop myself.
The food service worker in essence may be only guilty of being there as well, and then we assign motives when none are known or clear. Or it’s happened elsewhere “so it must be true” type of evidence in this case too. Illogical.
And if the person works at Smith you don’t think
they are fully aware of the social activism and progressive nature of the student body and staff? If you think this youve never been to smith or Northampton. You think they really just called the cops because they saw a Person of color. At Smith? An employee at smith. No I just don’t think so.
It has been stated a few times that the last meal was served 23 minutes earlier. How could anyone know?
The doors may have officially shut at 130. it might have a been a really slow summer day and clean up started at 1pm . Everyone who’s worked in a job knows how quickly peole want to wrap it up and get on with the day.
And this wasn’t a lounge or quiet study area from what I’ve read. But more of a separate foyer area leading into the dining hall from the main building entrance. Probably where one would sit waiting to meet a friend.
If it was known sleeping spot. I just don’t think the person would call.
Unless we assume they really wanted to get fired bad that day.
And if the the doors locked at 130 and there was no one expected to be sleeping on the couch in the foyer of an empty building. This is certainly a plausible response from the employee. It doesn’t seem hateful or bigoted from the transcript at all.
Should they have inquired first. No. Not in the job description for cafeteria worker. And what isn’t obvious is the accused employee’s own personal history.
It seems likely to be the last person looking around, just to make sure everything is ok before leaving as much as it is anything more nefarious.
And I believe with all my heart that if smith thought any of this happened in reality they would have thrown this person to the media wolves.
You say, “Hello! We’re closing up the building! You need to find somewhere else to nap!” It’s that simple.