Two African-Americans students at Tennessee’s Trevecca Nazarene University are demanding an apology from school officials after they were allegedly singled out for suspicion of drug use, WSMV-TV reported.
“So they get called out, pulled out of bed after midnight, have to submit to a drug test, threatened with a judicial hearing and no apology. No looking into anyone else to see who else it could have been,” Terrence French, a mentor to one of the students, tweeted about the incident.
French, known as “Cirvant” on Twitter, said his mentee and one of her roommates, who is also Black, were ordered to take a drug test after a resident assistant smelled marijuana on their floor and searched their room but found no drugs. The racial profiling accusation stems from the resident assistant bypassing the Black students’ two suite mates, who are White. Indeed, the only students questioned and ordered to submit to drug testing were the only two African-American students on the floor. The mother of one of the students took to Facebook to demand justice for them, the NBC affiliate said.
An apology from the university, however, is unlikely. University officials point to a policy that requires them to conduct a search and a drug test when there is reasonable cause to believe that students are in possession of narcotics. After a meeting with the students and their families, the university said there is “no indication of targeting in this incident,” a statement said.
