After more than a semester of investigation, the committee formed in response to an alleged racial profiling incident on campus will soon present a report to University President Judith Rodin.
The event, which prompted Rodin to mandate the committee, occurred last October, when Spruce College House Associate Faculty Master Rui DaSilva, who is black, was pepper-sprayed and arrested by University Police while he was trying to deliver donated bicycles to the Quadrangle. DaSilva lives with his wife, Director of Latin American and Latino Studies Ann Farnsworth-Alvear, and their children in the Quad.
Rodin asked School of Social Work professor Dennis Culhane to chair a committee to investigate allegations of racial profiling against the University Police Department.
The committee, comprised of a variety of members from around the University community, met regularly beginning in November to explore similar complaints against the University Police. The group is a subcommittee of the Public Safety Advisory Board, which Culhane also chairs. The advisory board oversees public safety issues on campus.
"The committee has finished its work, and we've written it up in its draft form," Culhane said. "We will send it over to the President's Office and to [Vice President for Public Safety] Maureen Rush and then they will deliberate" and decide what to do with it.
Farnsworth-Alvear expressed her desire that the findings of the committee prompt more discussion at the University.
"I hope that the report, rather than being an endpoint, is a beginning point for dialogue," Farnsworth-Alvear said. "I hope that the conclusions ... help the community move forward in addressing issues of racism."
The committee did not review individual incidents, but instead it focused on general trends concerning the University Police Department. The committee met with DaSilva once during its investigation.
The committee focused on "looking at the frequency of complaints and the proportion of complaints that were alleged as a result of bias," Culhane said. "We did not review any other individual incidents."
The committee, which usually met every other week, took longer than expected to complete the report, mostly due to the need for students on the committee to return home during winter break, according to Culhane.
Culhane said that the group worked together to compile a report that all members agreed upon.
"People have put a lot of time and effort into this," Culhane said. "The committee took the work very seriously."
"We worked by consensus," he added. "There's nothing in [the report] that we don't all agree upon."
Once the report is given to administrators, they will decide whether they will release it to the University community at large.
