Kennesaw State Suspends Adviser Who Threatened to Call Police on Black Student

The academic adviser caught on camera threatening to call the police on a black student has been suspended after an investigation, Kennesaw State University announced on Friday. Abby Dawson, director of advising and internships in the university’s department of exercise science and sport management, was placed on administrative leave last month.

“We have made it very clear to Ms. Dawson and her supervisors that the behavior she demonstrated on the video will not be tolerated,” the university’s provost, W. Ken Harmon, said in a news release, “and while we have apologized to the student directly, we also want to publicly apologize for her behavior, which is not representative of KSU’s student-centered culture.”

Ms. Dawson will be required to undergo training before she can resume advising students. The university also said it would reorganize advising altogether in response to the incident, centralizing it campuswide rather than having departments do it themselves.

In mid-May, a black male student uploaded a video to Twitter showing Ms. Dawson saying that his presence in the building amounted to “harassment,” and that she would call the police. The video was then passed around by others:

Wow! RT @deray: Kennesaw State University. @IamKB_ waits to meet with his advisor. America. #ItsBiggerThanKSU pic.twitter.com/EdKOWzEUJB

— House Kolekta (@DomiKolekta) May 15, 2015