Campus Safety Audit in Progress

Judge LaDoris Cordell Urges Students to Submit Their Experiences

On the morning of Aug. 22, assistant professor of English, Danielle Morgan, alleged that she was the target of racially motivated incident incited by a Santa Clara Campus Safety Services (CSS) officer. As a result, a public audit of the Campus Safety Department is currently being conducted by Judge LaDoris Cordell. 

Updates on the audit will not be released throughout the process. Cordell expects to issue the report to President Kevin O’Brien before the end of the year.

Cordell graduated from Stanford Law School in 1974, and practiced law in East Palo Alto as the first lawyer to open a private practice there. From 1978 to 1982 she worked as the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs at Stanford, where she developed an admissions program that led to a dramatic increase in black and latino students at Stanford Law School.  

Making great strides in the legal realm, in 1982 she was appointed to the Municipal Court of Santa Clara County, making her the first black woman judge in all of northern California, and eventually became the first black woman to sit on the Superior Court in northern California in 1988. 

She served as the San Jose Police Department auditor for five years, from 2010 to 2015, which gained national recognition for its work in civilian oversight of the police. 

The review will cover CSS policies, practices and records, past and present. It will also assess the history and hiring procedures for CSS officers. Job requirements, training, officer demographics, and budget will also be evaluated. She will also evaluate the past and present complaint process and policies regarding discipline of CSS officers. These policies and security service procedures will then finally be compared to other academic institutions to determine the best practices.

Chief of Staff for President Kevin O’Brien, Molly McDonald, sent out an email on Wednesday September 23rd regarding the audit, stressing that a fully comprehensive review will include personal feedback from those in the Santa Clara University community. Judge Cordell would like students and staff to submit their experiences in the Campus Safety Services Audit Feedback Form no later than Monday, October 19th. Any information submitted to this form will be for Judge Cordell’s purposes only. Some of this feedback may be followed up with zoom interviews as needed.

Please contact Molly McDonald with any questions regarding the Campus Safety Services Audit Feedback Form at mmcdonald@scu.edu. Students can also reach out directly to Judge Cordell at ladoris@judgecordell.com.