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White student at Yale said she had “every right” to call the cops on a napping black student

It’s a case of sleeping while black.

It’s a case of sleeping while black.

Police repeatedly asked a black Yale University student to prove that she attended the university after a white student called the cops on her for napping in the common room of her dorm. Although university leadership called the incident “deeply troubling” in an email to students the next day, the white student said she had “every right” to contact law enforcement.

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Lolade Siyonbola, a 34-year-old black graduate student, posted two videos of her encounter with the other student and police on Facebook; their total number of views exceeds 1 million. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The first video shows Siyonbola briefly interacting in the hallway with the white student who called the police on her on Tuesday. “I have every right to call the police,” the student tells Siyonbola. “You cannot sleep in that room.” The student, standing in the doorway to her dorm, is photographing Siyonbola during their entire conversation.

Siyonbola started another video once the two police officers arrived and questioned her.

“I was sleeping in the common room, and she comes in, and turns the lights on, and was like, ‘Why are you sleeping here? You’re not supposed to be sleeping there. I’m calling the police,’” Siyonbola tells the officers.

In that video, police repeatedly ask her to prove she’s a Yale student and show her ID. She opens her apartment to show she has keys, but they ask her again for ID. “I deserve to be here. I pay tuition just like everyone else,” Siyonbola tells them. “I’m not going to justify my existence here.”

Police officers later realized that her name was spelled incorrectly in the student database, which led to their confusion about her status as a student.

“We still have so much more to do,” University Secretary and Vice President for student life Kimberly Goff-Crews wrote in an email to students Wednesday, according to Yale Daily News. “All of us in senior leadership recognize that incidents such as this one are being framed within a difficult national context.”

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In a separate email to master's and Ph.D. students, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Lynn Cooley also condemned the incident.

“Incidents like that of last night remind us of the continued work needed to make Yale a truly inclusive place,” he wrote. “I am committed to redoubling our efforts to build a supportive community in which all graduate students are empowered in their intellectual pursuits and professional goals within a welcoming environment."

Race-fueled tensions have plagued the Yale campus for the past several years. In 2015, for example, a frat held a party with a “white girls only” policy and turned away female students of color at the door. A black female student also said she was denied entry to a frat party once unless the brothers could touch her hair. And two married professors resigned in 2016 after sending an email about Halloween costumes that ignited a free speech debate on campus.

In response to a growing outcry over the persistence of racial injustice on campus and the university’s inaction, former Dean Jonathan Holloway said in 2016 that the university had founded an interdisciplinary center dedicated to race, indignity, and transnational migration.

But to some students, that wasn’t enough. “An ethnic studies center, no matter how well-intentioned, will not distract from the very real emotional needs of students of color,” wrote Brea Baker, an organizer of the Women’s March, in an essay for Elle in 2016 when she was still a Yale senior.

Cover image: Screenshot of the video posted to Lolade Siyonbola's personal Facebook page.