Black Santa Clara University professor says campus police made her prove she lived in her own house

A black Santa Clara University professor said campus police on Saturday made her prove she lived in her own house. 

Danielle Fuentes Morgan, 36, who is an assistant professor in African American satire and comedy, said she opened the door to the officers but was still asked to show identification to prove it was her home. 

In a series of tweets which have since gone viral Morgan recounted how her brother, composer and pianist Carlos Fuentes, 32, had been questioned by security while he sat working on the campus. 

She said: ‘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.’ 

Morgan explained how her brother had come to visit her, her children and husband after safely quarantining for two weeks and following a period of eight months of not seeing each other. 

She described how ‘campus security came up to my brother in the midst of his meeting and told him to move along’, adding: ‘He’s been Black his whole life so he said ok. They followed him.’ 

Morgan added: ‘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.’

She says Carlos was then followed to her home where ‘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”.’

The academic says she then when to get her white husband who told the cops she was ‘not obligated to show’ her ID.   

She added: ‘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.

‘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.”

‘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.’ 

The officer said her brother had been ‘in the bushes’ and it was ‘suspicious’ and they thought he may have been homeless, Morgan tweeted.

President Kevin F. O’Brien said he was ‘deeply sorry’ and ‘racial bias or profiling has no place on our campus’ in a letter to Santa Clara’s students and staff.