Opinion

Let University Police Do Their Jobs

Years before the tragic shooting outside of a Delta Sigma Theta party a few weeks ago, the Office of Campus Life made policy choices handcuffed the Wake Forest University Police Department’s ability to proactively police on our campus.

In January 2014, a semester before the seniors graduating in May arrived on campus, a Kappa Alpha Psi party was shut down by the Wake Forest University and Winston-Salem Police Departments. Student activists organized a town hall where they accused the police of having racist attitudes towards minority students and policing IFC and Panhellenic Council events differently than National Panhellenic Council events solely due to the racial differences in the organizations.

The administration responded by commissioning the to investigate the claims made by minority students that the police were biased against them. The report found that none of the student’s allegations rose to the level of actual racial bias, but there were some incidents of insensitivity. The report also found that the differences in the policing of NPHC and IFC organizations were explained by non-racial factors.

The Wake Forest Police Department’s job is not to be the most diverse and inclusive department on our campus, their job is to keep Wake Forest students, faculty, staff and visitors safe from the dangers that lurk outside our walls.

Despite these findings, Wake Forest Vice President for Campus Life Penny Rue pursued policies that created a chilling effect on policing and changed how the police interacted with NPHC parties. Almost all WFU Police Department officers were forced to undergo unconscious bias training, which is based on the of implicit bias testing and have been shown to have in creating a more diverse workforce. The Police Accountability Task Force

was also created to help oversee these trainings and increase the diversity of the department. Furthermore, the social event management policies were changed in an attempt to decrease risk while decreasing the amount of armed police at NPHC events.

These actions made it clear that the current administration thinks it is more important to ensure that the WFU Police Department is not accused of being racist than ensure our campus is safe. Those two goals are not mutually exclusive and can be accomplished by improving relations with police and students. But if you scan press releases over the past several years from the University involving policing, you won’t find any articles about how Wake Forest is encouraging proactive policing to stop crimes before they happen. You’ll only see alerts about recent crimes and reports about how we are stopping our police from being racist.

The incident from a few weeks ago should be a wake-up call to the Office of Campus Life. The Wake Forest Police Department’s job is not to be the most diverse and inclusive department on our campus, their job is to keep Wake Forest students, faculty, staff and visitors safe from the dangers that lurk outside our walls. Indeed, instead of criticizing every police action through a critical theory lens, Wake Forest must let the police do their job.

One Comment

  1. Dear Mr. Wolfe
    It appear that the Chief of Police disagrees with your statement ” Almost all WFU Police Department officers were forced to undergo unconscious bias training, which are based on the dubious science of implicit bias testing and have been shown to have little efficacy in creating a more diverse workforce ”

    The report by the Chief of Police Williams recommended:

    “Our recommendations center on providing additional training to University police personnel in the area of conscious and unconscious bias and cultural differences.”

    Provide culturally diverse and bias based training programs for each employed at the Wake Forest University Police Department. This bias should include unconscious and conscious biases.

    Set a goal with specific timetables and metrics to develop innovative approaches to recruitment and take immediate action to hire additional minorities on the police force.

    … recommends that the University and Campus police re-institute the major events committee. … A detailed action plan should be held at least 7days prior to the event. This action plan must address personnel assignments, cost and at least a Sergeant in charge.

    Wake Forest Vice President for Campus Life Penny Rue has been implementing some of the recommendations of the Police Chief as put forth in the Williams-Moss Report. She should be commended.