BY DANIELLE FUENTES MORGAN

Earlier today, Danielle Fuentes Morgan tweeted the following thread, which is posted with her permission. Morgan is an assistant professor of English at Santa Clara University, and the author of the forthcoming book, Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century (University of Illinois Press, Nov. 2020).

Santa Clara University security just harassed me and my brother and forced me (a faculty member) to show my campus ID to prove I live in the house WHERE I OPENED THE DOOR.

My brother strictly quarantined for 14 days to come and see me and my children after eight months apart. I woke up early and happy this morning, for the first time in a long time.

He had a work meeting at 8:30am and so he went to campus to sit outside with his books and computer. SCU is beautiful — it’s specifically designed so that students, faculty, and staff have the opportunity to work outside, take pictures, and have the scene as a backdrop.

Campus security came up to my brother in the midst of his meeting and told him to move along. He’s been Black his whole life so he said ok. They followed him.

He moved toward the street which he thought was no longer on campus. They told him to leave. By this point there were four campus security cars.

One officer followed him to my house. I opened the door and my brother said, “I’m so sorry about this. They’re demanding you come out and vouch for me.” I, of course, knew exactly who “they” were.

When I came out, the officer very aggressively demanded to see my campus ID “to prove you are who he says you are and that you actually live here.” I went back inside to get my ID and get my husband. Probably important to note that my husband is white.

We both came out and he kept creeping toward us all. We asked that he socially distance and he finally stopped after we moved back quite a bit. He asked to see my ID, and my husband said that I wasn’t obligated to show it. The guy called his supervisor.

I asked what the issue was and he said my brother was “in the bushes” and it was “suspicious” and they thought he may have been homeless. I asked why I needed to show ID at my own home. He said “Well, it’s not your home. The University owns it.”

I told them that I was one of 7 Black faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences and that our student body population is 2% Black. I told them that the anti-Blackness they espouse and practice is part of the reason why.

I also told them that white students have been running around — maskless — banging on the houses on this street at midnight and smoking weed from apples on campus and this is apparently “just what happens.” But my brother is a threat.

My husband told them that this was anti-Black and despicable. He told them that they don’t harass anyone white on campus, ever. He told them they only harass Black students and faculty, and that following him to a second and third location was punitive.

Our neighbor came out at this point to walk his dog. My husband asked if they wanted to check our neighbor’s ID and they said “No, of course not.” He said, “That’s exactly the point.”

Our neighbor then came over when I shouted “Hey, can you vouch for the fact that I live here?” He did, and then he waited outside, closely, and watched the entire time.

My husband asked why they brought four cars. They said for safety. He asked for whose safety. They said “the officers’s safety.” He told them that he didn’t care about their safety and was concerned for his brother-in-law’s safety.

At this point, they told us they didn’t have any guns on them, so my brother wasn’t in danger. I was aghast that they explained he wasn’t in danger because they weren’t armed, not because he wasn’t a threat or because they wouldn’t hurt him, but because they COULDN’T.

At this point I told them that their stance and responses were exactly why we need to abolish the police and immediately divest from the city police department on campus.

My husband asked what, to their mind, we should do to not be harassed and followed. They said “Stay in open spaces.” That answer is unclear and insufficient, and I am concerned now to go back to campus AND to live in this house.

I am so angry. Academia proves over and over that it doesn’t love me. I don’t think I love it back anymore.

I am grateful for my friends who immediately reminded me to take photos, to chronicle, to report. And for all the neighbors who stood outside as witness which 100% defused the officers’s attitudes toward us.

I have been looking forward to today for so long. And now this. It’s absolutely too much and I’m not okay.

In a follow-up, Prof. Morgan tweeted, “Thank you all so much for your kind words and support. I want to let you all know that the president of SCU as well as my dean and other administrators have personally reached out to me. I am awaiting information on next steps.”