CHE: Was this Latino professor racially profiled?

[Caracal]

Ya'll are reaching hard for ways to hate on this prof and take the cops side. It's really weird that's the side you gravitate towards, aren't you professors?

Come on, man.  I know you have been frustrated by cops in your own life somehow, but no one is pouring "hate" on the prof.  People here are being reasonable given the facts at hand.  One doesn't have to take a "side" either.

There are bad police, certainly, but those of us who live in a society in which laws are enforced to our benefit should thank the cops.  Feel like hunting down any mass shooters yourself?

And I just wanted to know if peeps thought there was racial animus here.  I don't see it, personally.  I see several levels of our increasingly paranoid and impersonal society myself.

This is all really easy to think when you have a basic expectation that when you deal with the police, you won't be treated as a potential criminal. When I've been pulled over by cops, there has always been an obvious reason, and it is usually a perfectly pleasant interaction. "Hey, sir, do you know your headlight is out?" "No, I didn't realize that!" "Make sure to get that fixed." Even when I actually have done something wrong, like when I forgot to do the registration for my car, cops have never tried to come up with reasons to search my car, or acted like the registration is a sign that I must have some larger criminal enterprise. They treated me like I was a guy taking my kid to soccer practice who obviously sucked at taking care of things.

Lots of people who also aren't doing anything are routinely treated by cops as if they were people who are criminals who need to be regulated and controlled. Just because something doesn't happen to you, doesn't mean it isn't real.

[Caracal]

The broader point here is that the professor and the police officer are actually employees of the same university. Their job isn't just to make sure that the wrong people can't get into the building, but also to ensure that a professor who has a meeting with some transfer students can get in.

Letting people into spaces isn't typically part of the job for security; especially into prof's offices. That's why profs have keys.

There were all kinds of easy ways to balance those two jobs here. What it comes down to is that the police seemed to think that this guy wasn't really someone who was part of the University community and should be viewed as a potential criminal rather than someone who had done a series of boneheaded things but did need to go have this meeting.

The point is that the apparent "sequence of boneheaded things" is exactly the kind of story someone would make up if they were trying to do something illicit. Seriously, how often would someone lose their wallet and lock themselves out of their office? (Unless they lost their wallet and keys in the same situation, in which case, they'd have been contacting the institution to get a new set of keys.)

First of all, Fizzycist is right that people trying to commit crimes don't generally call the police. If you were trying to get into the building to steal something, wouldn't you just hang out by the door till someone came out and slip in behind them?

I lock myself out of my office at least once a semester. I've never had my wallet stolen and it would be unfortunate if it happened right before I locked myself out, but it would hardly be an incredibly improbable series of events. I have no problem with the officer wanting to verify Osuana was a faculty member, but that's where the faculty profile, the pictures of him on the walls and his keys on his desk on his open office come in.

[Caracal]

Letting people into spaces isn't typically part of the job for security; especially into prof's offices. That's why profs have keys.

Of course that is part of their job. It's really easy to lock yourself out of most faculty offices-far easier than to lock yourself out of your house. Usually when I go to the washroom, leave my keys in my coat pocket in the office and forget to push in the lock so the door doesn't lock behind me, I just sheepishly ask the admin for the key, but if it happens right before a night or weekend class, should the class just not happen? Should I have to take an uber home?

[marshwiggle]

This is all really easy to think when you have a basic expectation that when you deal with the police, you won't be treated as a potential criminal. When I've been pulled over by cops, there has always been an obvious reason, and it is usually a perfectly pleasant interaction. "Hey, sir, do you know your headlight is out?" "No, I didn't realize that!" "Make sure to get that fixed." Even when I actually have done something wrong, like when I forgot to do the registration for my car, cops have never tried to come up with reasons to search my car, or acted like the registration is a sign that I must have some larger criminal enterprise. They treated me like I was a guy taking my kid to soccer practice who obviously sucked at taking care of things.

Lots of people who also aren't doing anything are routinely treated by cops as if they were people who are criminals who need to be regulated and controlled. Just because something doesn't happen to you, doesn't mean it isn't real.

So would you call the cop contacting his supervisor as "treating the faculty member as a criminal"?

[marshwiggle]

Letting people into spaces isn't typically part of the job for security; especially into prof's offices. That's why profs have keys.

Of course that is part of their job. It's really easy to lock yourself out of most faculty offices-far easier than to lock yourself out of your house. Usually when I go to the washroom, leave my keys in my coat pocket in the office and forget to push in the lock so the door doesn't lock behind me, I just sheepishly ask the admin for the key, but if it happens right before a night or weekend class, should the class just not happen? Should I have to take an uber home?

I keep my work keys separate from my home keys. When I'm at work, my work keys stay in my pocket, (and I check each time I leave my office), so my home keys can stay in my desk. Unless I was wearing pants with no pockets, there's no obvious reason I wouldn't be able to easily keep track of my work keys as long as I put them back in my pocket as soon as I use them.
(One factor for me is that becuase my work involves labs, many times I'm leaving my office is to go into a lab. So I need to have my lab key as well. Even if I didn't care about locking my office, not having my keys would mean I couldn't get into the other places I need to go.)

I've never had to cancel an evening lab because it was after hours and I locked my keys in my office in 30+ years.

[Caracal]

Letting people into spaces isn't typically part of the job for security; especially into prof's offices. That's why profs have keys.

Of course that is part of their job. It's really easy to lock yourself out of most faculty offices-far easier than to lock yourself out of your house. Usually when I go to the washroom, leave my keys in my coat pocket in the office and forget to push in the lock so the door doesn't lock behind me, I just sheepishly ask the admin for the key, but if it happens right before a night or weekend class, should the class just not happen? Should I have to take an uber home?

I keep my work keys separate from my home keys. When I'm at work, my work keys stay in my pocket, (and I check each time I leave my office), so my home keys can stay in my desk. Unless I was wearing pants with no pockets, there's no obvious reason I wouldn't be able to easily keep track of my work keys as long as I put them back in my pocket as soon as I use them.
(One factor for me is that becuase my work involves labs, many times I'm leaving my office is to go into a lab. So I need to have my lab key as well. Even if I didn't care about locking my office, not having my keys would mean I couldn't get into the other places I need to go.)

I've never had to cancel an evening lab because it was after hours and I locked my keys in my office in 30+ years.

Well great, but if I tried to do that it would be a disaster. I'd probably often get to work and realize I'd left my work keys at home, or get to my car and realize my home keys were still in my desk. I've found that people who are very organized often don't understand that more organization doesn't help those of us who have trouble with this stuff. I have enough trouble keeping track of one wallet, one set of keys and one phone without splitting things up.

I've never had to cancel class either, but I did once have to call campus security to let me back in my office at 830 after class so I could get my keys and go home. And, like I said, the guy never asked me for my ID, I assume because when he opened the door, my keys were sitting right there on the desk.

[Wahoo Redux]

I'm sure that if the cop had just taken a few easy and common sense steps to verify that the professor was a faculty member (look him up on the system, walk with him to his office where his keys were on his desk and all the pictures of him and his family were on the wall)...

The broader point here is that the professor and the police officer are actually employees of the same university. Their job isn't just to make sure that the wrong people can't get into the building, but also to ensure that a professor who has a meeting with some transfer students can get in. There were all kinds of easy ways to balance those two jobs here. What it comes down to is that the police seemed to think that this guy wasn't really someone who was part of the University community and should be viewed as a potential criminal rather than someone who had done a series of boneheaded things but did need to go have this meeting.

I said almost the same things, Caracel. 

But you are talking about a Kafkaesque brainless bureaucracy interfering with common sense.  It was not that the police "viewed [Osuana] as a potential criminal rather than someone who had done a series of boneheaded things" (that's unfair and exaggerated) but a matter of boneheaded procedure. 

Who here hasn't had to deal with some stupidity created by red tape on some level?  Anyone had one of those jobs in which you were not given leeway to make a common sense decision?  Anyone forced to use a textbook that you and the students hate because of procedure (happening now in my  professional life)?

That is not the same thing as racial profiling. 

[fizzycist]

Ok, wahoo, you seem to be trying to find a common ground and steering back to the OP, so let me answer the questions from my perspective:

Is he overreacting? Yes, of course. This is objectively not a big deal.

Is he unfairly (maybe ironically) stereotyping the police? 
I would argue he is stereotyping police, but it is not unfair. Not when shit like this happens to you over and over and it doesn't happen as often to most others in the {set of faculty}. Of course there is no proof that the cop was acting on race--likely the prof's gender, age, demeanor, physical size, etc, played at least as big of a role. But IMO it becomes fair to harp on the possibility when most ppl in the lucky group won't even acknowledge the difference. Look at all the (presumably) profs in this thread who can't comprehend the possibility that cops might apply "protocols" differently depending on circumstance.

Or are the challenges of being a minority on campus understandable in this circumstance? Obviously. What other reason is there for a prof to blow up and make a huge deal out of a key incident than they are fed up with an accumulation of grievances?

Also, a whole lot of ppl are getting mixed up with the term minority here. The issue is not which groups are "minorities", but which groups are treated worse by cops. And anybody who has frequently felt unfairly treated by cops knows that it is not just white cops who exhibit biased behavior. The fact that the cop is Asian is about as relevant as if he were a redhead.

[marshwiggle]

Also, a whole lot of ppl are getting mixed up with the term minority here. The issue is not which groups are "minorities", but which groups are treated worse by cops. And anybody who has frequently felt unfairly treated by cops knows that it is not just white cops who exhibit biased behavior. The fact that the cop is Asian is about as relevant as if he were a redhead.

So if the cop were Latino, would that still be about as relevant as if he were a redhead?

(And isn't going from "some cops are obnoxious" to "cops are biased" profession profiling? If it's not OK to generalize by ethnicity, why is it OK to generalize by profession?)

[Wahoo Redux]

Ok, wahoo, you seem to be trying to find a common ground and steering back to the OP,

No, not really.  I'm not seeking common ground or anyone's approval.  I'm not even looking for agreement.

I just want to be objective, and I was honestly asking the question.

There are a lot of "I bet if..." type statements flying around, including by the prof involved, and these are not very convincing.  There are also a 'this-happens-all-the-time' type comments, which are also not terribly convincing in this one very specific instance.

No reasonable person is going to claim that racial profiling in general is not a problem in all walks of American life (have you seen that cell-phone video in which the white homeowner in the gated community blocks in the two black deliverymen in a company van making a scheduled delivery in his neighborhood?), just as no reasonable person will downplay the prevalence of rape and child abuse.

But that does not mean that we need to sling the term every time a minority person is involved in a situation. 

Like the charge of "rapist" or "pedophile," the accusation of "racism" is an automatic button pusher and leaves a permanent wound. 

The prof in question needed to be more mature and more level-headed.

[fizzycist]

Also, a whole lot of ppl are getting mixed up with the term minority here. The issue is not which groups are "minorities", but which groups are treated worse by cops. And anybody who has frequently felt unfairly treated by cops knows that it is not just white cops who exhibit biased behavior. The fact that the cop is Asian is about as relevant as if he were a redhead.

So if the cop were Latino, would that still be about as relevant as if he were a redhead?

Yes

(And isn't going from "some cops are obnoxious" to "cops are biased" profession profiling?

You are playing games with words, making small adjustments that are different from what I wrote. But if you want to call what I wrote " profiling" I'm ok with it.

If it's not OK to generalize by ethnicity, why is it OK to generalize by profession?)

I have no opinion to share on what is OK. You are free to make your own moral judgments. Just don't be upset if someone else evaluates your judgments as racist/bigoted/whatever.