Black GSU professor calls police on Black students who entered class late
TikTok creator Bria Blake brought attention to the incident in a now-viral video calling the Black professor’s response “extremely unreasonable and dangerous.”
Georgia State University is investigating reports of a Black professor calling the police on two Black students for coming to class two minutes late this week.
As reported by NBC News, professor Carissa Gray was called out publicly on Wednesday evening by Bria Blake, a TikTok creator and student at the university’s Perimeter College, whose video describing the events sits at nearly 149,000 views as of Saturday afternoon.
According to Blake, two of her classmates, identified as Kamryn and Taylor, walked into the classroom two minutes after class began and were asked to leave by Gray, who did not respond immediately to NBC News’ request for comment.
Per Blake’s report, after the students refused and Taylor told Gray they “paid to be here,” the professor exited the room and returned a short while later with two armed police officers, who allegedly threatened to charge the students with trespassing if they did not leave.
“We are looking into this matter and how it was handled by the faculty member,” Georgia State University said in a statement, per NBC News.
“Campus police arrived after being called by the faculty member and immediately de-escalated the situation between the students and faculty member,” the school added. “Clearly, no crime had been committed so there were no arrests.”
Per NBC News, neither Blake, Taylor nor Kamryn were available immediately for comment when contacted by the outlet.
Blake said in the video that the two students were in tears out of worry about what may happen to them during the incident. She added that when they filed a complaint with the campus’ Student Life department, they were informed that police had been called on students for “something irrational” before.
Per NBC News, the university’s student code of conduct permits an instructor to contact campus police when they feel the need to remove a student behaving in a way that “poses an immediate threat to the safety” of themself or others.
A spokesperson for the university told the outlet that it is unusual for tardiness or disrespectful behavior to be met with that response from faculty, and the codified policy is meant to address behavior posing an extreme threat.
“Time and time again, we’ve seen the police being weaponized against Black people,” Blake said in the video. “Calling the police on two students for being two minutes late to class is extremely unreasonable and dangerous.”
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