A federal judge has ruled that neither Penn nor Graduate School of Education Professor Erling Boe can be held liable for an alleged racial assault incident which occured last spring at Campus Copy Center.
Last April, black Graduate School of Education student Gregory Seaton was awaiting service at the 39th and Walnut street location of Campus Copy Center when he was allegedly passed over for service by Ron Shapiro, son of store owner Stan Shapiro, in favor of Boe, who is white.
When he demanded to be served, Seaton claimed that several store employees jumped over the counter and assaulted him while Boe stood idly by.
Ron Shapiro has said that serving Boe first was merely an oversight, but Seaton has stated that he believes Shapiro's actions were racially motivated. Campus Copy Center vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the incident.
"I'm saddened by the fact that we are being prejudged and prejudged wrongly," Stan Shapiro said at the time.
An investigation by University Police determined that there were no criminal charges to be filed against the vendor.
U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell, ruled that Seaton's claims of racial discrimination by Campus Copy and its employees were not valid.
In the days following the incident, Seaton sent out a barrage of e-mails to Penn students and West Philadelphia residents. Several student groups, including UMOJA and the Black Student League, held protests outside the retailer and advocated for a University-wide boycott.
Campus Copy representatives eventually signed a letter of apology about the incident, pledging to undergo sensitivity training and to ensure fair treatment of all customers.
Seaton originally filed a lawsuit in federal court last April against Campus Copy Center, the employees who allegedly attacked him, the University and Boe.
The lawsuit also claimed that the University failed to respond to prior complaints by minority students regarding Campus Copy.
"The University is pleased that the court recognized that neither the University nor Professor Boe were responsible for the Campus Copy incident," University spokeswoman Phyllis Holtzman said.
Campus Copy representatives could not be reached for comment about the verdict, though in past statements they had claimed that Seaton incited the violence himself, forcing the employees to come from behind the counter to subdue him.
In August, Seaton filed two additional charges against Boe and the University after Boe sent a letter to Seaton's academic advisor, Education Professor Margaret Beale Spencer. In the letter, Boe called Seaton's allegations "groundless and without merit."
Seaton filed the additional charges because he thought the letter could be detrimental to his academic career.
In October, the Division of Public Services released a draft of the Statement of Principles for University Community Retailers, a set of guidelines for vendor behavior that was inspired by the Campus Copy incident. The statement reads that the University expects vendors to "exhibit responsible behavior, to be responsible for their actions and to respect the rights of others."
University President Judith Rodin said she believes the controversy over the incident was resolved with the creation of those guidelines, not with the dismissal of the lawsuit.
"We didn't feel that the lawsuit was the closure issue one way or the other," Rodin said. "For us, I think, and hopefully for the campus community, what put closure to it was the very principled set of prescriptions with regard to the vendors that wish to do business with the University community."
Rodin also cited "the kind of attention that it brought to the fact that we still need to redouble our efforts to be a more civil society" as an issue that surfaced following the incident and which has hopefully been resolved.
