Imagine being an African-American college student and as you walk into school to start your day, your handed a cup and told to pee. As you’re following the rules, you realize this rule only applies to you? That’s what the Black students at Trevecca Nazarene University.
Per High Times
Diamond Bell is a freshman studying psychology at Trevecca Nazarene University, a small Christian college in Nashville. She and another student—both black women—also just received an impromptu lesson in social justice and the drug war. And how their school forces black students to submit to drug tests.
On the night of October 29, after Bell had returned to campus from her full-time job at a fast-food restaurant, resident advisors at Bell’s dorm were conducting a nightly round of bed checks (sounds like a fun dorm) when someone supposedly smelled weed.
Bell lives in a suite-style accommodation which she shares with three other women—one black, two white. She awoke sometime after midnight; the dorm’s resident director was shaking her awake.
According to a Facebook post from Bell’s mother, the RAs suspected Bell and the other black student of drug use—not their white suitemates. They denied using cannabis but had their room tossed just the same
You can see where this is going. The RAs did not search the white women. Rightly incensed, Bell and her mother requested a meeting with the college’s dean of students for an explanation—and, one would think, an apology.
Instead, when they showed up to the meeting, the dean instructed Bell to pee in a cup. She had to take a drug test, the dean told her. If she refused, the administration would consider the test “a positive.”
University policy bans drugs including marijuana—which is illegal in Tennessee. Bell submitted to the test, which she passed. To date, the university has yet to explain itself or apologize. Instead, Trevecca Nazarene University has dug in, insisting it was in the right and that it didn’t commit any racial profiling.
“The search and test are standard University policy in situations where there is reasonable cause, and there is no indication of targeting in this incident,” a statement from the school released to WKRN reads. “We take any reports of this type seriously with an expectation that all people on our campus will be treated with love and respect.”
The craziest part of this story is how nonchalant everyone from the R.A.s to the administration were about the situation. Whether they were racially targeted or the situation was just a huge series of unfortunate events, I would’ve expected this to be taken more serious.