NC university files federal complaint, alleges SC deputies racially profiled students

Shaw University has filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking a review of a traffic stop in Spartanburg County, during which a K-9 searched the belongings of students.

The Raleigh, North Carolina university, which was founded in 1865 and was the birthplace of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, alleges the students on the bus were racially profiled and their right to privacy violated. The search came up empty.

Shaw University President Paulette Dillard said in a press conference Monday, “The harmful effects of eroding individual rights under the pretext of law and order are real – and they are rampant all over the country. Let’s be clear … racism is about power and systems; and just because there isn’t a knee on someone’s neck doesn’t mean that no harm is being done.”

The charter bus carried 18 Shaw students from Raleigh to the Center for Financial Advancement Conference in Atlanta on Oct. 5.

Spartanburg County Sheriff Chuck Wright and Cherokee County Sheriff Steve Mueller held a news conference a few weeks later to deny the allegations, which they called libelous and slanderous.

Wright said deputies pulled over the unmarked bus with tinted windows because the bus was weaving. The stop was part of Operation Rolling Thunder, a drug enforcement effort.

“They could not see in the bus,” Wright said, adding that officers and the driver had a cordial conversation. They asked to inspect the cargo hold and the driver opened it, Wright said.

The dog was on a leash, and alerted on one bag, which was searched but contained only a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. Officers searched two other bags and found clothing and toiletries, a video released by the Sheriff’s Office showed.

None of the students were taken off the bus, Wright said.

The bus driver was given a warning.

In the complaint, filed by the Blue law firm of Raleigh, the university says deputies pulled over 315 White drivers, 308 Black and 125 Hispanic.

“The numbers demonstrate that Black drivers were disproportionately targeted,” the complaint said.

In addition, none of the students were asked whether their bags could be searched.

“Shaw is not alone in complaining of racial profiling in interstate travel, nor is it alone in its concern regarding South Carolina’s institutionalized practice of using the thinnest of pretext to justify violations of the civil liberties of innocent Americans,” the complaint said.

Five members of Congress — Deborah K. Ross, Alma S. Adams, David E. Price, G. K. Butterfield and Kathy Manning — wrote a letter in October to Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for his office to investigate.

“We write to urge you to conduct an expedited and independent review of the unfounded search of 18 Shaw University students earlier this month, as well as a pattern-of-practice investigation of the Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office, which conducted the search,” the letter said. “No illicit materials were found, and the students were left unnerved, confused, and humiliated.”

The letter said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper asked North Carolina Public Safety officials to express his concern to South Carolina law enforcement.

The letter said the Spartanburg Sheriff’s Office has “patterns of misconduct..” They cited a lawsuit filed in 2014 filed by a Black former detention officer who said people in the department used racial slurs and provided him with inadequate training compared with what white officers had.

The officer Brian Blalock was fired in 2012 after a physical confrontation with an inmate. The parties settled that suit, but the details were not released.

The Congress members also cited Wright saying in 2020, “We had every opportunity to kill two Black men and we did not do it,” while defending how deputies handled two arrests.

“We believe transparency and accountability are necessary for ensuring justice for the Shaw students directly involved in the incident, as well as the larger Shaw and Raleigh communities, the letter said.

Wright said in the news conference he does not tolerate racism and wishes it would die “an ugly, cruel death.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, calling Dillard’s statement “libelous and slanderous.”