Discussions of racial discrimination on college campuses are inextricably linked to athletics. According to social scientist Richard E. Lapchick, "Although less than six percent of all students at Division I-A institutions are black, 60 percent of the men's basketball players, 37 percent of the women's basketball players and 42 percent of the football players at those schools are black." Similarly, even though two percent of USD students are black, 37 percent of the men's basketball players, 31 percent of the women's basketball players and 20 percent of football players are black. Hence, a substantial portion of black students at USD, as it is on many college campuses across the nation, are athletes. Yet, it is important that the discourse incorporates the plight of all black students on campus, athlete and non-athlete.
While the Trumaine Johnson lawsuit triggered the discussions of racial profiling at USD, the discourse should extend beyond the bounds of the case. Whether or not the court finds that the university cultivates an atmosphere of racial discrimination, deliberation and awareness of racial profiling must not dissolve with the final striking of the gavel.
In their eye-opening book "Dorm Room Dealers: Drugs and the Privileges of Race and Class," sociologists Dr. A. Rafik Mohamed and Dr. Erik Fritsvold depict and analyze the largely ignored network of drug dealing on college campuses. Despite haphazard techniques and overt law-breaking, the affluent college dealers in Mohamed's and Fritsvold's study waltz straight through legal barriers with little to no resistance from law enforcement. The sociologists cite the concept of "symbolic capital" as one major reason for this blind eye of the law.
Symbolic capital, as defined by sociologist Pierre Bordieu, is the degree of societal prestige an individual accumulates. It is essentially a person's perceived value in society. The power of symbolic capital on college campuses is vividly illuminated in "Dorm Room Dealers", however this power is not exclusive to drug dealing networks. Symbolic capital, in fact, posits an interesting and dynamic perspective on racial profiling, as it goes beyond simple explanations of blatant racism and ethnic generalizations. It illuminates potential conscious and subconscious motives behind the truculent practice.
"While I can't speak to campus police specifically, I can say that the evidence about racial profiling has been a cause for concern for decades in criminology," said Fritsvold, who began the "Dorm Room Dealers" study as a graduate student at UC Irvine and is now a sociology professor at USD.
He went on to explain, "When I teach about issues of racial profiling in traffic stops, African American students or African American employees or African American professors all self-report that they've been pulled over by San Diego Police on Linda Vista Road at a rate that is between two and five times their non-person-of-color counterparts."
Yet while the disturbing realities of racial profiling are tragically expected, they often seem reserved for the distant and unforgiving real world outside the protective walls of Alcala Park. The realities of racial profiling acquire heightened poignancy when they permeate the seemingly innocent campus.
Two African American students-athletes who spoke on the condition of anonymity, given the delicacy of the discussion, described several incidents of clear racial profiling on campus. For instance, they have experienced random ID checks by Public Safety to ensure they were USD students and have also experienced accusations of theft by employees at an on-campus eatery.
More powerful than the stories of racial profiling, though, was the sentiment candidly shared by the two students regarding their perception of the atmosphere at USD. While it is important to address and investigate the veracity of the alleged incidents, more essential is a deeper understanding of the USD experience for African American, and other minority, students
"I feel like some students aren't really used to seeing people of my type. Even the teachers. They might automatically assume when you walk into class the first day that you're going to be a troublemaker," one of the students said. "If I didn't play [my sport] I couldn't go to school here. I would have to transfer."
"I don't really feel welcome around here," added the other student. "A lot of stuff goes on but it's kind of expected now. In the end we're just trying to get our education."
In "Dorm Room Dealers," Mohamed and Fritsvold describe the impact of symbolic capital at the unnamed university, which served as the hub of their study, "Beyond direct tuition stimulus, the university was also reliant on their students' social status for its ‘brand' reputation…Accordingly the dealers in the network had amassed enough symbolic capital to grant them a certain degree of legal immunity."
The study illustrates how racial profiling may not simply be a case of targeting certain ethnic groups, but rather of ignoring or absolving other ethnic groups. Thus, it may not be that African Americans are specifically targeted, but that they are singularly targeted.
Of course, that is not to say that stereotyping plays a limited role. On to the contrary, according to Mohamed and Fritsvold, stereotyping often determines the perception of an individual's symbolic capital. Instead, the study shows that racial profiling is not simply applied racism, that those accused of racial profiling are not necessarily racist. Racial profiling, then, can be representative of a flawed institutional structure, rather than the malicious intentions of rogue individuals.
A common problem in the discourse of the Trumaine Johnson lawsuit is the tendency for finality; the assumption that there is a right and a wrong, a single truth and a single lie, a protagonist and an antagonist. Dynamism is often lost.
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