By Brooklyn Dance
Trevecca officials on Wednesday released a statement denying allegations that the university racially profiled two African American female students who were required to take drug tests after a resident director claimed to smell marijuana in their room.
“After a briefing of the facts, we are confident the search was not racially motivated and proper protocol was followed. We are fundamentally committed to ensuring that Trevecca is a safe place for all students and desire that no student feels targeted for any reason,” the university stated in a released statement.
Terrence French, who attended Trevecca for four semesters and tweets under the handle @Cirvant, started a thread on Twitter after a female student he said he mentors told him that her resident director woke her in the middle of the night because she smelled marijuana. According to the Twitter post, she and her roommate, also an African American student, were both required to take drug tests after a search of their room did not turn up any drugs. The drug tests, according to French’s post on Twitter, were clean.
His post, as of Wednesday night, was retweeted more than 700 times and “liked” more than 900 times and several Twitter users tagged national media outlets as well as the NAACP and the ACLU.
Trevecca tweeted the following statement around 10 p.m. on Tuesday:
“We are aware of this situation. After a briefing of the facts, we are confident the search was not racially motivated. We take any reports of this type seriously with an expectation that all people on our campus will be treated with love and respect.”
There are more than 170 responses to Trevecca’s tweet, with most of them calling for more information or investigation.
University officials said they are not permitted to discuss cases involving students, but on Wednesday released another statement saying, “administration officials are doing a full investigation of this matter and will take steps to ensure that all students are treated with respect and sensitivity.”
French said he is planning to meet with student development officials at Trevecca and wants them to look into their drug screening procedures.
“I think [the University] should look into procedures in which they do these drug screenings, they also need to apologize to the students,” French said in a phone interview. “The way they handled the situation is wrong.”
On Wednesday, campus officials confirmed they are planning to meet with French on Thursday and said they did not want to publicly comment until they have a chance to meet with him.
Trevecca released the following statement in full on Wednesday:
“After a briefing of the facts, we are confident the search was not racially motivated and proper protocol was followed. We take any reports of this type seriously with an expectation that all people on our campus will be treated with love and respect. We are fundamentally committed to ensuring that Trevecca is a safe place for all students and desire that no student feels targeted for any reason. Trevecca will not publicly discuss details to protect student confidentiality. Administration officials are doing a full investigation of this matter and will take steps to ensure that all students are treated with respect and sensitivity.
