CHE: Was this Latino professor racially profiled?

[Langue_doc]

The prof was never in danger.  He never claimed he was in danger.  He claimed that the police officer, who is of Asian heritage, would not let him in his office.

I think we all get it.  That is not fair to say.

Getting it is not the same as believing every accusation, however.

And false accusations of racism, just like when Rolling Stone makes headlines for publishing false accusations of rape, really, really hurts those people who make legitimate complaints about racist behavior.

Not only did the professor not have a valid picture ID, but also appears to have made no attempt to get a replacement for the lost driver's license. Most people would have immediately contacted DMV and would have been issued a temporary driver's license. As far as the security officer was concerned, this alone would have been a red flag.

[mleok]

I don't think the professor was necessarily profiled by the officer. A couple of years ago I was working on a Saturday, left my office for some reason, and the door locked behind me with my keys and ID on my desk. Thankfully I had my mobile phone in my hoodie pocket and called Police & Safety and explained that I was stupid and had just locked myself out of my office. They asked if I had ID and I said it was locked in my office. When the officer got there, he said he would go in first without me when I said that my office keys were on top of my desk attached to my ID (I need my ID to swipe into labs), and my handbag with additional ID was in the big pullout drawer in my desk. He went in, checked my ID, came back out, let me in my office, and wished me a good rest of the weekend. I doubt he'd have let me in my office if I didn't have any ID at all with me because I was dressed like a hobo (old jeans, a tattered hoodie that was probably older than the officer) and if he had done a webpage search, I look absolutely nothing like my official photo on the department faculty page - have put on some weight and have much longer hair that is a different color than it was when those photos were taken ten years ago.

I had something similar happen with me. The police officer opened my office door, and retrieved my ID from my desk to verify my identity. For us, the protocol is also stricter during the summer when many people are away, and there is no easy way to corroborate my story.

[mleok]

I cannot see the police officer did in anything wrong in this situation, and I believe the professor is attempting to leverage the current tenor of racial tension because he is (perhaps understandably) paranoid.

The cynic in me wonders if he's capitalizing on this to advance his academic narrative. He works in critical criminology after all.

[Wahoo Redux]

I once had a friend who is in a protected category say, "I wish everyone could be an outsider for just one day."  The stresses and worries of being outside the Panoptic mainstream must be terrible.

At the same time, if you look at Osuna's publications it seems like he might have an obsession with racism and policing. 

There is no one thing that went wrong or could be fixed here.

If only, only, only people could be reasonable.

[Caracal]

I once had a friend who is in a protected category say, "I wish everyone could be an outsider for just one day."  The stresses and worries of being outside the Panoptic mainstream must be terrible.

At the same time, if you look at Osuna's publications it seems like he might have an obsession with racism and policing. 

It's a scholarly interest of his. I'm sure he would love for it to just be something he writes about...If someone was a psychology professor who studied the sleep patterns of young children and that person then had a toddler who sometimes had trouble sleeping and talked about it in terms of their research, would that seem weird and suspicious? If I studied Vikings and reported a raid by men with swords and horns on their hats in my town (actually, vikings didn't have horned hats, that was a weird victorian invention), it would be reasonable to wonder if I'm seeing things in the world that are actually in my scholarship, but that isn't a fair assumption for someone who studies a contemporary subject.

[marshwiggle]

I once had a friend who is in a protected category say, "I wish everyone could be an outsider for just one day."  The stresses and worries of being outside the Panoptic mainstream must be terrible.

At the same time, if you look at Osuna's publications it seems like he might have an obsession with racism and policing. 

It's a scholarly interest of his. I'm sure he would love for it to just be something he writes about...If someone was a psychology professor who studied the sleep patterns of young children and that person then had a toddler who sometimes had trouble sleeping and talked about it in terms of their research, would that seem weird and suspicious? If I studied Vikings and reported a raid by men with swords and horns on their hats in my town (actually, vikings didn't have horned hats, that was a weird victorian invention), it would be reasonable to wonder if I'm seeing things in the world that are actually in my scholarship, but that isn't a fair assumption for someone who studies a contemporary subject.

To the man who has only a hammer, every problem is a nail.

[Caracal]

Not only did the professor not have a valid picture ID, but also appears to have made no attempt to get a replacement for the lost driver's license. Most people would have immediately contacted DMV and would have been issued a temporary driver's license. As far as the security officer was concerned, this alone would have been a red flag.

I'm not sure there is such a thing as a temporary drivers license. If you go to the DMV, they usually just print the thing out and hand it to you. They don't send you a pdf if you call and tell them you lost your license...

A trip to the DMV isn't exactly a trip to the drugstore. Perhaps, he got back in town late on a Friday, and had  a wall of administrative meetings the next Monday (including this meeting with the transfer students) and was going to go to the DMV the next day.

Maybe he walks to campus. Even if he does drive, driving without a license is only a serious issue if you don't have a license or it has been suspended. If you have a valid license, but it just isn't on you, it's just a minor traffic violation in most states. Or I don't know. Maybe he's like me and he just sort of sucks at taking care of things.

It makes sense that the police officer would want some verification, and it sounds like the professor understood that and provided a bunch of ways to do that. If he'd let him in and walked to his office, he would have found it unlocked, with his keys on the desk and a bunch of pictures of him all over the walls. He was fired and isn't allowed back in the building but his office is unlocked and his keys are on the desk?

[apl68]

I once had a friend who is in a protected category say, "I wish everyone could be an outsider for just one day."  The stresses and worries of being outside the Panoptic mainstream must be terrible.

At the same time, if you look at Osuna's publications it seems like he might have an obsession with racism and policing. 

It's a scholarly interest of his. I'm sure he would love for it to just be something he writes about...If someone was a psychology professor who studied the sleep patterns of young children and that person then had a toddler who sometimes had trouble sleeping and talked about it in terms of their research, would that seem weird and suspicious? If I studied Vikings and reported a raid by men with swords and horns on their hats in my town (actually, vikings didn't have horned hats, that was a weird victorian invention), it would be reasonable to wonder if I'm seeing things in the world that are actually in my scholarship, but that isn't a fair assumption for someone who studies a contemporary subject.

To the man who has only a hammer, every problem is a nail.

I was just thinking the same thing--and also, that to those who are fond of their particular hammer, other people whom they have an instinctive bias against start looking like nails as well.

[Wahoo Redux]

It's a scholarly interest of his. I'm sure he would love for it to just be something he writes about...If someone was a psychology professor who studied the sleep patterns of young children and that person then had a toddler who sometimes had trouble sleeping and talked about it in terms of their research, would that seem weird and suspicious?

First of all, I empathized with the prof.

Secondly, yeah, it might be "suspicious."  All sorts of things keep toddlers awake.  So yeah, if the diagnosis of the analog-psychologist was immediate, pronounced and even expected, as in our real world example, I hope someone would get a second opinion on the kiddie's condition.  BTW, counselors will often enact exactly this sort of confirmation bias with their patients. 

But that is not really an analogy for our real world scenario anyway.

[marshwiggle]

It's a scholarly interest of his. I'm sure he would love for it to just be something he writes about...If someone was a psychology professor who studied the sleep patterns of young children and that person then had a toddler who sometimes had trouble sleeping and talked about it in terms of their research, would that seem weird and suspicious?

First of all, I empathized with the prof.

Secondly, yeah, it might be "suspicious."  All sorts of things keep toddlers awake.  So yeah, if the diagnosis of the analog-psychologist was immediate, pronounced and even expected, as in our real world example, I hope someone would get a second opinion on the kiddie's condition.  BTW, counselors will often enact exactly this sort of confirmation bias with their patients. 

But that is not really an analogy for our real world scenario anyway.

I know of a very well-respected cardiologist who was convinced he had a heart problem, despite any diagnosis indicating his heart was perfectly healthy.

[newprofwife]

Why did the supervisor say "no"? I don't think this had much to do with race. I'm still unclear why the supervisor told the officer to not to let the professor in. Also, the officer is Asian if I am reading this correctly so the officer is also a POC.

It's a very unfortunate situation and perhaps the police could have given him the benefit of the doubt but this isn't police brutality or anything of that level.   

[Wahoo Redux]

Why did the supervisor say "no"?

Procedure.

[fizzycist]

Dunno how anybody watches the video and takes the cops' side. Just simple common sense that he is telling the truth. ppl don't pull elaborate scams like that on cops.

cops cost a fortune, the least they can do is open the fucking door to the hallway for someone who pretty clearly works there.

[Wahoo Redux]

Dunno how anybody watches the video and takes the cops' side. Just simple common sense that he is telling the truth. ppl don't pull elaborate scams like that on cops.

cops cost a fortune, the least they can do is open the fucking door to the hallway for someone who pretty clearly works there.

All true.

But was this racial profiling or simply a department which is a bit too anal retentive?

[Langue_doc]

Dunno how anybody watches the video and takes the cops' side. Just simple common sense that he is telling the truth. ppl don't pull elaborate scams like that on cops.

Here, in the city, some institutions require everyone, faculty, staff, and students to swipe their campus IDs before entering the building. If you are locked out of your office, security might open the door for you provided you can show your campus ID once Security has opened the door to the office. Security does make exceptions, especially if they know you. If you are an unfamiliar face to Security, not having a valid photo ID would be a red flag, as would not having made any attempt to get replacements for lost IDs. We need photo IDs even to buy beer at the grocery store.

According to the CHE article, the officer bumped this up to his supervisor. It was the supervisor who made the decision to not open the door based on the information he was given--the professor did not have a valid photo ID in his office. The ethnicity of the professor was never mentioned.

Injecting race into this situation, and especially trying to jeopardize a minority officer's livelihood and career is, in my humble opinion, despicable.