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Shaw University president Paulette Dillard filed a federal complaint after a bus carrying students to an academic conference was stopped and searched by authorities in South Carolina for a minor traffic violation on Oct. 5.
The complaint asked for a federal review, arguing that a minor traffic violation was an insufficient reason to justify a search for drugs.
“Let’s be clear,” Dillard said at a news conference Monday. “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,” according to The News & Observer.
Dillard argued that the students had their civil rights violated and called the incident racial profiling.
Sheriff Chuck Wright of Spartanburg County, where the incident occurred, said at an Oct. 31 press conference that the stop and search had “nothing to do with racism,” according to The News & Observer.
