Racial Incident at Yale University.
SMERCONISH: It's finals time on college campuses and it's pretty typical to fall asleep in a dorm common room. When a black Yale University graduate student snoozed on a couch in her dorm, a white student called campus police who showed up and interrogated her. The black student whose name I may be mispronouncing, Lolade Siyonbola posted two videos of the encounter to Facebook where they went viral and drew thousands of comments. This is part of an ongoing national problem we keep seeing more and more examples of -- police being called by white people who are reporting black people for mundane activities. There were the two black men at the Starbucks right here in Philadelphia arrest forward not buying a drink while they waited for a business meeting, a black former White House employee who moved into a building in Harlem and a neighbor called cops about him being in his own building; three Missouri teens shopping for prom clothes in a Nordstrom who were wrongly charged with shoplifting. "The New York Times" just this morning summarizing these cases and more with a headline, "When White People Call the Police on Black People." It cites a NPR survey from last year in which half of African-Americans said they personally experienced racial discrimination in police interactions. As the Yale student said in her video, I deserve to be here. So what's to be done? Joining me is Cornell Brooks, the former President of the NAACP, currently a visiting professor at Boston University. Cornell, how do you apportion blame for this Yale incident, your alma mater, by the way?</s>CORNELL BROOKS, VISITING PROFESSOR AND THE FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE NAACP: Yes, we have to be very clear. The blame falls squarely on the white graduate student, Miss Brioche, I believe. Because when you use blue uniforms to police presumably white spaces to maintain white privilege, this is not only a moral offense, it's potentially a crime. In other words, when you knowingly call the police to use them to harass a fellow student, it appears that she has called the police previously on African-American students. It appears from her interaction with Ms. Siyonbola that she knew that sleeping in a common area of a dorm was not a crime. What we have here is essentially discrimination by cop. It is white graduate student's responsibility for this whole entire mess and Yale has responded, I think, in a very sensitive way. They called that student into account, and so, yes, the blame falls on the white graduate student.</s>SMERCONISH: So that's actually my next question. I want to put on the screen the statement issued by the Yale police chief which says this: they informed the caller the student had been in the common room, was an authorized resident and had every right to be there. They also explained this was not a police matter and were reporting the incident to the Dean of Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Should the white student be reprimanded?</s>BROOKS: Yes. Think about this. We should not be using our police officers to engage in discrimination in public accommodations or accommodations on university campuses where we have a student calling the police for something she knows is not a crime. She's essentially trying to use the police to effectuate her personal preferences in terms of segregated white space. That's unconscionable. She should be reprimanded, and in fact we need to think about whether or not she should be charged for filing a false report. That is just simply unconscionable. Where we have an African-American student during finals, during a stressful period on the college camp campus, being subjected to what I would call an exorbitantly high race tax if you will; an emotional toll being imposed on her simply because of the color of her skin. She's a young African-American scholar trying to do what students do everywhere which is to study as hard as you can and make the best grades you can.</s>SMERCONISH: I can't argue with anything you've said. Just a limited time left but I do want to raise this subject. This case appears inexcusable. I'd love to interview the white woman to find out what was going on in her head. But I do worry in a climate of see something, say something, that a person really does see something that is noteworthy and now says, uh-oh, I better not call the police because I may be perceived as racist. You get the final word.</s>BROOKS: Yes, I understand when you see something you should say something, but if you see racial stereotypes, and you believe a person's skin tone makes them a suspect, then rather than say anything to the police, you need a serious conversation with your own conscience. That is not being vigilant in terms of terrorism or vigilant against crime; it's effectuating one's personal preferences in terms of segregated space and discrimination.</s>SMERCONISH: Cornell commencement speaker at the Kline School of Law. Thank you for being here.</s>BROOKS: Yes, I'm looking forward to it. Take care, Michael. Thank you.</s>SMERCONISH: Let's check in on your tweets and Facebook comments. I wish I had more time for social media. I love this. This is outrageous. Napping while black? I've fallen asleep during lectures. If the bitch who called 911 , hey, tell me what you really think, was concerned, she should call an RA or campus security or just wake her up. Woman should be fined for wasting essential police services. Yeah, Shauna (ph), I have to say I think there's a legitimate question here of, what do you now do with the woman who made that phone call because she did waste police resources and put those cops in a bad spot. She's deserving of some level of reprimand, I would say, for this. Last chance to vote on today's survey question on smerconish.com. Go to the website now. Which more accurately summarizes the impact of the Russian probe for the Trump Administration? These are both John Kelly's words. Embarrassment or distraction? Still to come -- the President's plan to fix our infrastructure seems to have hit a major pot hole. Here's my question -- should we emulate this activist -- oh, my -- in England who has figured out how to get the authorities to respond?