After panel, university works toward official profiling policy

Sarah King 
Contributing Writer

Kevin Harris said it was a joke between himself and Aashir Nasim, Ph.D., to “check on each other” after VCU crime alerts were  sent out with a suspect description of an African American male. By the fourth or fifth time, however, there was less humor in the sole descriptors “black, bald and bearded.”

“I was like well if I’m starting to feel bothered by this, then I can’t imagine how others feel,” said Harris, who is the vice president of student health and academic and diversity affairs at VCU.

“We aren’t saying strip out race as if it doesn’t matter, it can be an important descriptor, but it can’t be the only descriptor. It isn’t effective that way.”

In lieu of these concerns, the Black Education Association hosted a panel discussion on Oct. 28 that featured Harris, Nasim, who is department chair of African American studies, VCU Police chief John Venuti and former student Stephen Davenport.  From the discussion came an initiative prompted by VCU vice president of finance and administration David Hanson, Ph.D., to determine whether race as a sole descriptor in the alerts was effective and necessary.

“The whole thing was very organic,” Harris said. “We didn’t know whether the university would feel like we’re causing trouble unnecessarily, which is why Dr. Hanson’s response was definitely the trigger point.”

The controversy with the alerts stems from a federal law known as the Clery Act. Venuti explained that when one of seven Clery crimes occurs within VCU’s core campus and there is risk of ongoing danger, the university must send a crime alert to ensure campus safety and comply with the act. The Clery Act, however, does not mandate that a suspect’s race be included as a descriptor in the alert.

“I think this issue is complicated,” Venuti said. “I walk in the world of reality and that is that sometimes we just don’t get a very good description. The parallel I always draw is that if we were looking for a missing child, what info would be helpful? The answer is: any information that’s available.”

Harris emphasized that the panel was not trying to take away a tool from the police department or hamper campus safety, but instead ensure that it is an effective method when using race almost as a sole descriptor in isolation.

“That’s the underlying thing here, this is advancing racial profiling. When you do it in a way where that’s the only descriptor people can latch onto sometimes things can become a little irrational, especially with the background and history and context of being African American,” Harris said. “I think it would be a sad testimony to say in retrospect ‘this didn’t even help us solve any crimes, but look what we’ve stirred up.’”

Nasim said the group started “moving toward action” the day after the panel discussion. A meeting was arranged for Nov. 7, and conference call was arranged for Nov. 8. A meeting with the Board of Visitors during the April or May Board of Visitors meeting may also be on the horizon.

“We need to start with a conversation which is: What is racial profiling? What are the legal parameters around it? Does VCU have a policy about racial profiling? And as it turns out, we don’t,” Nasim said.

Although Nasim said he gives credit to Venuti, Hanson and Wanda Mitchell, VCU’s vice president for diversity and equity affairs, for wanting to “right the ship,” it was he who sent out an email in August pertaining to the nature of the alerts that set in motion the panel discussion.

“This is a challenge for us to be able to ensure the safety and security of all without infringing upon the rights of a few,” Nasim said. “If there’s a way to issue crime alerts in a way that doesn’t infringe on the rights of groups that have been historically marginalized or criminalized then let’s figure out a way to do that.”

The descriptors are used in the alerts because they are sent to more than 50,000 students, faculty and staff. That’s 50,000 additional sets of eyes outside of the police force to help match the suspect description, Venuti said.

In his August email, Nasim referenced the most recent VCU crime alert at the time (August 2, 2013), which was sent to more than 35,000 alert subscribers. He said it essentially warned them to be on the lookout for 3,205 young- adult African American men who are heavy-set, have a bald head and sport facial hair.

According to the 2012 U.S. Census data, in the city of Richmond there are approximately 210,309 residents, and of that, 50.4 percent are African American, and 48 percent are male.  According to enrollment statistics, in the VCU 2013 freshman class alone, 17 percent are African American, and 41 percent are male.

“I would frame the problem as being that an unexamined policy has seemingly unintended consequences,” Harris said. “The question becomes, is the nondescript, almost isolated use of race is effective in carrying out the Clery Act and does it result in racial profiling?”

Harris has been unofficially assigned the task of determining the policy measures that must be taken to move forward with this initiative. Thus far, he said he has examined policies at universities who have faced similar situations, historically black colleges and universities and other Virginia schools.

“The next step is to pull in the stakeholders, to get a sense of what this means to people,” Harris said. “I’m doing research, we’re all taking time in the interim to see what’s happening around the country in regard to this. There’s an overhead, a burden of race, which comes in. It’s real.”

Harris said the initiative is going to include two months of focus groups, talking to people, establishing how prevalent the issue is and examining data to determine if the isolated use of race is effective.

“I think there’s some marginalization taking place with African American males who are socialized from very early that they will probably have different treatment,” he said. “If this can demonstrate that this one descriptor of a person is actually leading to solving crime, I’d be willing to pull back and be less offended.”

Venuti said the issue was complicated and each crime alert is established on a case-by-case basis. He said he agreed to sit on the original BEA panel because he is a strong advocate for collaboration with every group on campus.

Hanson said the goal of the initiative is to develop a university policy on profiling.

“From there, my hope is that the conversation across campus on many topics related to diversity will continue to grow and benefit us all,” Hanson said.