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College Administrators Tighten Security, Try Background Checks

Photo credit: K. Cummings/The Meter Students walk past crime scene at Tennessee State University after the Halloween night slaying of a delivery man.

By Mercy Chikowore
Black College Wire

Violence at or near historically black colleges this year has alarmed some students, faculty and administrators and prompted some campuses to tighten security.

In many cases, students were the victims. In a few, students were alleged to have been the criminals. Other incidents involved local residents who had access to the colleges because of the open layout of their campuses.

The incidents have left many asking whether security is tough enough, and whether other policies, such as admissions practices, can be used to improve safety.

• On Halloween night, a Chinese-food delivery man was robbed and killed in front of a dormitory on Tennessee State University's campus. Police arrested and charged three teenagers and two men who are not connected with the college. It was the first slaying on the campus in eight years, reported the Meter, the campus newspaper.

• On Oct. 8, a shooting during Southern University's homecoming football game against Alabama A&M University sent students and spectators scrambling. Three people were reported injured. The shooter fired into a crowd of tailgaters just outside the university's A. W. Mumford Stadium, police told reporters after arresting a 20-year-old Baton Rouge man and a 16-year-old. Two feuding groups of young people in Baton Rouge had crossed paths and started fighting just outside the game, police said. On Nov. 11, the adult suspect died in a drive-by shooting at his home in Baton Rouge, according to the Associated Press.

• On Oct. 2, a brawl left 18-year-old Joseph Anthony Davis Jr. dead. He was beaten by more than 15 attackers in a fight that started in a parking lot near the Adam's Mark Hotel in downtown Dallas. Students were celebrating the State Fair Classic between Prairie View A&M and Grambling universities. Phillip Horton, Kendrick Lamont Barnes, Christopher Norris Smith and Antonio Denard Few have been charged with murder. Police identified Horton as a Prairie View student.

• Benjamin Hart, a 23-year-old Jackson State University senior, was shot Aug. 26 after an altercation with another student in the Jacob L. Reddix Student Union. Hart required surgery for his injuries. According to university officials, the incident began after Ryan Mack, a 32-year-old graduate student, might have offended members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity in a nearby area where benches are painted in the fraternity's colors. Fraternity members followed him into the student union, where a fight took place. Mack allegedly shot Hart, who is an Omega Psi Phi member. Police charged Mack with aggravated assault and possession of a firearm on state property. Anthony Hales, 20, and Kenneth Hair, 21, both Omega Psi Phi members, were charged with disorderly conduct.

• On July 17, a 20-year-old Hampton University senior, Byron J. Bryant Jr., died after being stabbed several times in a fight that started shortly after midnight in the restroom of a downtown Hampton restaurant and spilled out into the street. Police sought two Hampton students in the stabbing: Jihad Amir Ramadan, 18, charged with murder, and David Ifill, 20, charged with assault and battery.

Although higher education groups and university officials point out that college campuses are typically far safer than the larger community, the fact remains that parents trust in these institutions to keep their children safe.

Surveillance cameras, police escorts

Several historically black colleges are implementing new security measures, such as requiring visitors to show identification to gain access to campus buildings, installing surveillance cameras and emergency phone booths, and adding ID card-swiping systems for dormitories.

Tennessee State University in Nashville recently added surveillance cameras and police escorts. After the killing of the food deliveryman, university officials said they would also require area delivery services to contact campus police.

Nearby Vanderbilt University, a predominantly white college that also saw a shooting on its campus recently, has an "access control" system to keep nonresidents out of its dormitories.

However, this did not prevent an incident Sept. 25 in which a Vanderbilt football player was shot and injured in a dormitory hallway. Nonstudents Edward Earl Allen Jr., 22, and Carlos Andrecus Branch, 26, were arrested after being identified on surveillance tapes from a camera in the dorm elevator, which recorded the attack.

George Smith, a freshman football player, was shot in the arm, and two other freshmen football players, Derrius Dowell and Reshard Langford, were injured.

Residents must swipe an identification card to enter the buildings. However, the alleged shooters gained access when someone else left the building, a school official said.

"You can have systems in place, but if you have people that are defeating the system internally, it leaves the campus open," said Marlon Lynch, assistant chief of police at Vanderbilt.

According to the Tennessean newspaper, which examined 2004 crime statistics for Nashville and the two colleges, the rate of major crimes is six times higher in greater Nashville than on Tennessee State's campus and four times higher than at Vanderbilt.

"There were 168 major crimes for every 1,000 people in the Metro Police Department's jurisdiction, but only 26 crimes per 1,000 people on TSU's campus and 42 per 1,000 on Vanderbilt's," the newspaper found. Most of the incidents at the schools were thefts, fights, vandalism and drug offenses.

Environment a factor

Crime at or near campuses depends on the environment surrounding the institution, said Linda Earley Chastang, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Association For Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. NAFEO is a support organization founded by officials of historically black colleges. In that sense, "Our campuses aren't any different from any other campuses," she said.

Historically black colleges have not been found to have any higher violence or crime rate than mainstream schools, she said.

Many campus safety policies are designed to address crime involving access to the campus, but some universities are also considering ways to ensure that past or potential criminals are not among the student body.

One of the most recent and controversial tactics was adopted by North Carolina public universities, which are screening students before admissions.

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and others among the 16 campuses in the state's public college system, have begun turning away some student applicants because of past criminal involvement, confirmed Mimi Cunningham, assistant to the chancellor for university relations at UNC-Wilmington.

Those who agree with the screenings say past criminal behavior can predict future behavior and checking can weed out potential risks. Some who are opposed say the screenings might be applied unfairly, denying a chance to students who already paid for mistakes made when young.

The university system this year began closely screening students because of two fatal incidents in spring 2004. On June 4, a former boyfriend and former UNC-Wilmington student allegedly shot Christen Marie Naujoks, 22. A fellow student was charged with kidnapping Jessica Lee Faulkner, 19, from her dorm May 4 and killing her. Both men later killed themselves.

Background checking is not new: Many medical colleges have been requiring it for applicants because these students have so much contact with the public in hospitals, according to the Federation of State Medical Boards. Individuals with violent backgrounds cannot be given access to hospitals and lethal doses of medication. Other schools require background checks under state law.

Schools that check backgrounds do it as prevention.

"A campus is a microcosm of the larger culture," said Mimi Cunningham, spokeswoman for UNC-Wilmington, reflecting on the causes of violence involving students. For example, young people are less experienced in solving conflicts and relationship problems, so they may look to violence sometimes, she said.

Background checks are not the only solution. The university also offers counseling for domestic violence and substance abuse.

More selectivity in admissions

Still, some believe that being more selective with admissions will also help prevent crime.

"I do believe that some of the measures we have put in place to screen applicants to college will help," Cunningham said. She added that the screening does not always involve checks of police records, because in many cases college applicants are underage, and juvenile records are closed.

The University of North Carolina screening system might be an extreme in terms of school safety, according to Barmak Nassirian, the associate executive director for external relations of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, a professional group for those who work in enrollment management.

"We want to make sure that we don't go to such an extreme that we end up imposing extrajudicial [sanctions] to people that have already been punished," Nassirian said.

This type of screening also may not be so useful, as "most of the crimes committed on campuses are not committed by students with previous records," said Raymond A. Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University.

Winbush is a psychologist with expertise in race relations and social justice, and serves as an executive board member of the National Council for Black Studies. He has made appearances on the "CBS Morning Show," Black Entertainment Television and more recently on "Oprah" with the cast of the movie "Crash," discussing racism and stereotypes.

"The quality of the offense, rather than the quantity of the offense, would be something that they need to judge," Winbush said of the UNC-Wilmington guidelines on background checks. "You have to judge each one of their cases on an individual basis."

Lynch, the assistant chief of police at Vanderbilt, said background checking "can give an indication of possible behavior in the future. It's going to be weighed by the universities. Each institution is different in their decisions."

One of the most important tools in protecting students is "the knowledge of students that they have to be cautious of their surroundings. Just overall awareness," Lynch said.

"Of course, we'll do our part physically – as far as patrol, task force, access control, police checking IDs at resident halls, changing the culture to where people are more aware, and where alcohol is not involved in every activity," he said.

Mercy Chikowore is a senior print journalism major at Claflin University in South Carolina.

Posted Nov. 15, 2005