How can we make a judgment about whether the student is rehabilitated if he has not yet finished his sentence? Is there some reason why we have so much confidence in him? Or are we simply holding him to a lower standard because he is a minority? Do we just expect our Hispanic students to traffic in cocaine? Are we motivated by a racism that is almost too subtle to detect?

Finally, I cannot express how deeply disappointed I am in my own department. When I became aware of this situation I naturally passed the information along to some of my colleagues. When I told a Marxist feminist in the department she simply laughed and made a joke about “applied learning” among the criminal justice students.

I respect all of my colleague’s rights to make jokes - in fact I wish they would laugh more often. But this is certainly no laughing matter. It is not the first time we have had a criminal justice student deeply involved in the dissemination of illegal drugs. And if we don’t start to take the problem seriously we will suffer further damage to our department’s reputation.

Just a few days before we conferred a criminal justice degree on a confessed cocaine dealer university police conducted a drug raid at a UNCW dorm. The range of drugs involved was great but a couple of arrests were for possession and distribution of very small amounts of marijuana.

The recent UNCW drug raid has many wondering whether we should be arresting students who are only involved in the possession or sale of marijuana. I’m wondering whether the students were making a valuable contribution to diversity.

To be continued …