School staff to receive anti-bias training in response to employee calling 911 to report student, who says: ‘All I did was be black’

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A Massachusetts college president is apologizing after campus police were called to investigate a black student quietly eating her lunch in a common room.

Smith College president Kathleen McCartney said in a letter Thursday that the college was hiring a “third-party investigator” to review the incident and that every Smith staff member would undergo mandatory anti-bias training.

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Officials say an employee at the Northampton college called 911 Tuesday to report someone appeared “out of place” in the building.

The school said there was nothing suspicious. McCartney has apologized to the undergraduate student, who is a teaching assistant this summer.

The woman who has identified herself as the student posted on Facebook that it was outrageous she couldn’t eat her lunch in peace.

She added: “All I did was be black.”