Dive Brief:
- An alleged victim of racial bullying has filed a $5-million claim — the precursor to a possible lawsuit — against San Jose State University.
- The claimant, a black man, was a 17-year-old freshman last fall who says he was subjected to a series of abusive incidents by four white roommates in his dormitory suite.
- Among the incidents, which went on for weeks, the roommates called him “three-fifths” and “fraction,” referring to the way the pre-Civil-War U.S. government counted black slaves as a fraction of a person.
Dive Insight:
If the allegations are true, it's almost inconceivable that no one in a position of authority intervened. The roommates also tacked up a Confederate flag on a window in the suite, locked him in his room, wrote the "N-word" on a dry-erase board in the suite’s living room, and wrestled him to the ground and fastened a U-shaped bicycle lock around his neck and told him they lost the keys, according to court documents, police reports, and campus housing staff emails.
The claimant, Donald Williams Jr., alleges a dormitory adviser ignored a "clear" warning sign that "a potentially explosive and dangerous situation was developing.” San Jose State is also under fire from a task force on racial discrimination that was created earlier this year by the university to critique its handling of the incidents, the San Jose Mercury News reported. The four roommates have pled not guilty to misdemeanor hate-crime and battery charges.
