The following letter
was sent to Dr. Lance Donaldson-Evans, Chair of the Faculty Senate,
on October 27 by President Judith Rodin, and to Almanac for
publication.
Subcommittee
of Public Safety Advisory Board
to
Review 10/11 Incident
I
received your request, published in the October 24 Daily Pennsylvanian,
for a review of the events of October 11th involving Rui DaSilva.
I appreciate your sending me a copy of this request in advance.
The
University has in place a Public Safety Advisory Board, chaired
by Dennis Culhane, a tenured member of the faculty. This Board
is charged with overseeing public safety issues on our campus.
Given its charge, I believe that the Board provides the appropriate
forum to consider the issues raised by the SEC request. For
this
reason, we have asked Dr. Culhane to convene a subcommittee of
the Board, including faculty, students, and staff, to consider
the issues that underlie the SEC's concerns in the context
of the October 11th event. He has agreed to do so.
Racial
profiling is a matter of serious concern to our community,
to
the city, and to the country. I believe it is important that
we continue to address community concerns about public safety
and
race, openly and forthrightly, to ensure that all members of
our community feel safe. I am grateful that the Advisory Board
has
agreed to consider this issue and I will share the Board's
advice with you after it has completed its work.
--
Judith Rodin
Subcommittee
of the Public Safety Advisory Board
Dr. Dennis Culhane, professor
of social welfare policy and psychology, School of Social Work,
Chair
Dr. Elijah Anderson, Charles
and William L. Day Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences,
School of Arts and Sciences
Dr. William Baxt, professor
of emergency medicine, School of Medicine
Dr. Sean Kennedy, associate
professor of anesthesia, School of Medicine
Dr. David Mandell, assistant
professor of psychiatry, School of Medicine
Rev. William Gipson, University
Chaplain
Jeanne Arnold, executive
director, Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs
Sheen S. Levine, WHG '02,
graduate student
Alex Breland, C '04,
undergraduate student
Amy Gartenlaub, C '06,
undergraduate student
Charge: To review
the practices, policies and procedures of the Penn Police Department
with respect to racial profiling, and investigate the recent incident
on campus in support of that review.
Almanac, Vol. 50, No. 11,
November 4, 2003
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