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Smith College Employee Who Called Police on Black Student Put on Leave

The employee reportedly told police that the student, who was quietly eating lunch, seemed “out of place.”

The Smith College employee who called police on a black student eating her lunch on campus has been placed on leave, a school official announced Friday. MassLive reports that the staff member involved will remain on leave until the conclusion of the school’s external investigation into the incident. The school also said that it will put staff through anti-bias training. Oumou Kanoute, an undergraduate working at the university for the summer, wrote in a Facebook post that she was on her lunch break when a police officer approached her and asked what she was doing there. Kanoute later found out that an employee called the authorities because she seemed “out of place.” She has since asked the university to reveal the name of the employee so “that he or she can apologize.”