Immigrant Students Face Harrassment, Racial Profiling on Campus

By Edwin Okong'o, deleted. Posted July 15, 2008.

As a Muslim male of Somali descent living in post-September 11 United States, Mustafa Jumale knew that he risked harassment from law enforcement officers and racism from some Americans. Although he had never experienced it himself, harassment by police was a common complaint among his peers. But Jumale thought that if he did everything right - completed high school and went to college - people would treat him differently.

After three years at the University of Minnesota, where he studies Sociology of Law, Criminology and Deviance, Jumale learned that the university is far from the save haven he was looking for.

"'Minnesota nice' at this university is covert racism," Jumale said, as he sipped a cup of coffee at as shop just outside the university's West Bank campus.

Jumale's sentiments stem from observation and interview he conducted of least a dozen students for a research paper he wrote about the experiences of "Somali College Students at a Predominantly White Institution." In his research, Jumale heard from a Somali honor student who majored in English Literature but was told by a professor on the first day of class that the course was "too advanced." Then there was another student who told him he received a D in a term paper because, according to the professor, "the words in your essay are not words you would be able to understand." But no grievance was more common than alleged harassment by the university's police.

Jumale heard complaints about police officers randomly searching Somali students' supposedly looking for stolen property. Others complained about being asked to provide IDs while white students walked by uninterrupted.

Despite the pain these incidents caused, Somali students treated them like nuisances and went about their studies. It wasn't until last October, when a police officer detained three Somali students for robbery, that Jumale and his fellow students realized that these were no trivial issues.

The sandwich robbers

At around 10 p.m on Oct. 19, 2007, Shafii Osman, a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in Biology, said he and two of his friends were walking from the university gym to a nearby McDonald's when an undercover police officer stopped them and asked for their IDs. Osman began to protest when the officer refused to tell them why he wanted their IDs, but one of the friends, who had gone through a similar incident, asked him to comply, lest he get arrested. After looking at their IDs and searching their pockets, the officer allegedly said they "fit the description" of "East African males" who had just robbed Subway, the sandwich shop. Osman said the officer ordered them into the car and took them to Subway.

"That was when we learned what the robbery was," Osman says. "A group of guys had taken off with sandwiches without paying."

Despite the Subway employees' failure to identify the men who had committed the crime a few minutes earlier, the officer allegedly asked Osman and his friends to pay for the sandwiches or risk criminal charges. They chose the latter. The police officer booked them and let them go. With the help of an attorney, the three students were able to get their cases dismissed.

But for one of Osman's co-defendants, who did not want to be identified, the whole ordeal was so damaging that said he is still struggling to understand it.

"It caused me a so much stress," the friend said. "I was approaching exams with the possibility of being sent to jail."

The student also reported that because he had to go to court four times, he dropped out of an internship.

Somali perpetrators

Jumale and other students say incidents like Osman's are a result of a University Police Department that stereotypes Somali students. He cites three "public safety alerts" sent by e-mail to the entire university by Chief Greg Hestness. In the e-mails sent between Oct. 10, 2007 and March 10, 2008, Hestness describes each of the suspects as either "East African or Somali," or just "Somali."

"When we applied for admission to this university, we were not required to check a 'Somali' box," said Fathi Gelle, who was recently elected president of the Somali Students Association at the university. "How do you know who is Somali? I can bring you a three different people from Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia and you won't be able to tell the difference."

Hestness, the police chief, said he had not sent any additional e-mails. But he also defended his use of "East African" and "Somali."

"For identification purposes, if a person is of African descent and speaks with a foreign accent we have to share that information," Hestness says.

But in one of the e-mails, Hestness listed the three suspects as "Somali" even though he had written that it was "not believed to be a random attack" because the victim "invited three acquaintances into his room." He explained that the victim did not know their names but had invited them to the dorms to sell drugs.

On other allegations of profiling, Hestness said that despite numerous appeals to Somali students, no complaints had been filed against any of his officers.

"I don't know how many ways to ask them to come to us," Hestness said.

But there was one time in early May when Somali students went to Hestness's office to complain against a police officer who allegedly assaulted a young Somali woman.

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