Feeling the Heat: NAACP report targets racial profiling on campus

The NAACP of Texas and the Texas Criminal Justice Coaltion on Friday released a manual (pdf) for university students on the subject of racial profiling entitled Feeling the Heat: Changing the police climate in your campus community. The report was released in Huntsville, where local NAACP branch president and retired Texas prison warden Richard Watkins and NAACP Texas President Gary Bledsoe held a press conference.

"One student was stopped no less than 17 times over the course of a single semester," Watkins said. "He wasn't once given a citation or a ticket or was arrested. That was a very degrading kind of thing for him. He could have been very hostile because of it, but instead he became an activist."

According to WFAA-TV, results from the report included:

•Texas A&M: Blacks were 2.1 times more likely than Anglos to be searched during stops by campus police; Latinos, 1.5 times more likely.

•University of North Texas: In Denton, blacks are slightly less likely than whites to be searched following a stop by campus police. Latinos are 1.5 times more likely.

•University of Texas: Blacks were less likely than Anglos to be searched by campus police during stops. Latinos, however, were 2.4 times more likely than whites to be searched.