August 25, 2020
Black University Professor Says She and Her Brother Were Harassed by Campus Security
Santa Clara University (SCU) in California is conducting an investigation after a Black assistant professor says campus security racially profiled her brother and then harassed her in her own home.
Danielle Fuentes Morgan, an Ivy League-educated English professor at SCU, says the incident occurred Saturday morning after campus security spotted her brother, Carlos Fuentes, in the area. Morgan says he was sitting outside with his books and computer for a work meeting when he was approached by security. She says her brother, a Black classically-trained musician, complied with the orders but was still followed to her home.
Santa Clara University security just harassed me and my brother and forced me (a faculty member) to show my campus ID to prove I live in the house WHERE I OPENED THE DOOR. A thread. (1/n)
— Danielle Fuentes Morgan (@mos_daf) August 22, 2020
“Campus security came up to my brother in the midst of his meeting and told him to move along. He’s been Black his whole life so he said OK. They followed him,” she wrote on Twitter detailing the encounter. “He moved toward the street which he thought was no longer on campus. They told him to leave. By this point there were four campus security cars.”
Morgan went on to describe the ordeal in a Twitter thread Saturday afternoon that has since gone viral. She tweeted that security escorted her brother to her campus residence so that she could vouch for him. Morgan added that they told her that her brother looked “suspicious,” that he was “in the bushes,” and that they thought he may have been homeless.”
But it gets worse.
I asked what the issue was and he said my brother was “in the bushes” and it was “suspicious” and they thought he may have been homeless. I asked why I needed to show ID at my own home. He said “Well, it’s not your home. The University owns it.” (9/n)
— Danielle Fuentes Morgan (@mos_daf) August 22, 2020
The professor went on to reveal that the campus security also demanded that she show her ID to prove that she was a resident at the campus.
“One of the officers said to me, ‘You don’t own this house. This house doesn’t belong to you,”‘ she explained during an interview with ABC7 News.
Morgan says she called for her husband, who is white, after the officer “aggressively demanded” to see her campus identification.
“He asked to see my ID, and my husband said that I wasn’t obligated to show it. The guy called his supervisor,” Morgan tweeted.
“My husband asked why they brought four cars. They said for safety. He asked for whose safety. They said ‘the officers’s safety.’ He told them that he didn’t care about their safety and was concerned for his brother-in-law’s safety,” she wrote.
“At this point, they told us they didn’t have any guns on them, so my brother wasn’t in danger. I was aghast that they explained he wasn’t in danger because they weren’t armed, not because he wasn’t a threat or because they wouldn’t hurt him, but because they COULDN’T,” she continued.
I told them that I was one of 7 Black faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and that our student body population is 2% Black. I told them that the anti-Blackness they espouse and practice is part of the reason why. (10/n)
— Danielle Fuentes Morgan (@mos_daf) August 22, 2020
In response, University President Kevin F. O’Brien issued a statement late Saturday, revealing that he spoke with Morgan and her family and that the incident was being investigated. He added that the school’s campus safety officers will receive ongoing training on racial profiling.
“Racial bias or profiling has no place on our campus. This is our home. Only when we can all feel at home here can we all thrive and realize the promise of our mission,” he said.
Morgan summed up the incident, which comes amid ongoing national protests against racism and police violence against the Black community, as “the reality of Black life in the United States,” reports ABC7.