Santa Clara University: Black professor goes viral after saying she was harassed by campus security

Danielle Morgan, a Black assistant professor at Santa Clara University, had been excited to reunite with her brother on Saturday after the pandemic kept them apart for months.

But the happy reunion they had planned went sideways when, Morgan says, campus security harassed her brother while he was waiting for her on campus — and then asked Morgan to show ID to prove her residence in her own home.

Morgan’s Twitter thread detailing the incident went viral over the weekend, exposing the tensions still surrounding the presence of police on college campuses and highlighting issues of race at Santa Clara University, where only 2% of students are Black and Morgan is one of seven Black faculty members in the College of Arts and Sciences.

On Saturday, Santa Clara University President Kevin O’Brien said he was “deeply sorry” about what happened to Morgan and her brother, and announced that the school’s Office of Equal Opportunity would investigate what happened.

The Mercury News has reached out to Morgan and Santa Clara University for comment.

On Saturday, Morgan wrote on Twitter, her brother Carlos Fuentes was taking a virtual meeting outside on Santa Clara University’s sunny tree-lined campus when four cars of campus security officers came up to him and told him to move.

“He’s been Black his whole life so he said ok,” Morgan wrote.

Followed by an officer, Fuentes went to the street and then to Morgan’s house, where she lives with her husband and children in University-owned housing. When Morgan opened the door, Fuentes told her, “I’m so sorry about this. They’re demanding you come out and vouch for me.”

Morgan’s husband, who is white, told the officers that Morgan didn’t have to show identification. When Morgan asked what the problem was, the officer told her that her brother had been “in the bushes,” saying that officers thought he may have been homeless.

And when Morgan asked why she had to show identification in her own home, the officer responded, “Well, it’s not your home. The University owns it.”

For Morgan, the situation underscored “exactly why we need to abolish the police and immediately divest from the city police department on campus,” she wrote. Underlining the issue, she said, white students had been smoking marijuana in the neighborhood without intervention from campus security, and when a neighbor came outside during the incident to walk his dog, the police said they “of course” didn’t see the need to check his identification — which, Morgan’s husband said, was “exactly the point.”

The security officer also said that four cars had responded to the scene for “the officers’ safety.” But, the officer said, they didn’t have any guns on them, so Morgan’s 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,” Morgan wrote.

Eventually, Morgan’s husband asked the officer what they should do “to not be harassed and followed.” According to Morgan, the officer responded: “Stay in open spaces.”

“That answer is unclear and insufficient, and I am concerned now to go back to campus AND to live in this house,” Morgan wrote.

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Author: Erin Woo

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