Louisville President Apologizes Again for Secret Service's Behavior

Black Issues in Higher Education, Oct 14, 1999

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- The University of Louisville's president says that he's disappointed the U.S. Secret Service still has not apologized for its agents bursting in on a Black student scholars meeting with guns drawn.

Dr. John Shumaker made the comments late last month during a meeting here with African American students and teachers in which he offered a second apology for the incident in late August.

Officials with the Secret Service's Louisville office apologized after gun-wielding agents stormed the meeting and mistakenly apprehended a student they believed to be a suspected counterfeiter they had pursued onto the campus.

But the Louisville office's chief agent has defended her agents' actions, calling them appropriate -- a response that prompted Shumaker to ask U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell to raise the issue with officials at the U.S. Treasury Department, which oversees the Secret Service.

The young man arrested at the meeting of the Woodford Porter Scholars group was not the counterfeiting suspect. He later was arrested on a warrant for an outstanding traffic violation. The incident outraged the campus' Black community, which makes up about 10 percent of the university's enrollment.

Some Black students and instructors are using the incident to point out larger racial problems at the school. Tensions came to a head late last month when more than 200 protesters held a sit-in outside Shumaker's office.

Students and faculty are demanding a series of reforms, including more tenured Black professors, more courses and programs devoted to African and African American culture and history, a greater emphasis on recruiting and retaining Black students and a greater voice in the university administration.