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JEFF HOROWITZ: In early March, high school guidance counselors around the Twin Cities opened an unsettling piece of mail. The letter was from three Black professors at Saint Cloud State. It claimed a pattern of discrimination. The letter included news clippings spanning 15 years, and it included one particularly stunning phrase, that Saint Cloud and Saint Cloud State can be hazardous for Black people. University officials said the letter was not helpful. But it did spur a fresh round of debate about the experience of students of color.

Decontee Kofo was born in Liberia and transferred here last year from North Hennepin Community College. She would not call the place hazardous, but she says she can never forget for a moment that she's Black

DECONTEE KOFO: The people I were rooming with, they were from small towns from around Saint Cloud. So there were a lot that they really didn't know. And at first, it was cool telling them things about Africans and African-Americans and minorities. But after a while, it became like, OK, all righty, that's not why I came here. Let me study.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Kofo says students ask her questions about her hair and make comments suggest they have no knowledge of Black history. She's tried to handle it with grace. But she's annoyed by having to be what she calls the voice.

DECONTEE KOFO: Because a lot of my classes, I found myself being the only African in the class, the only Black person in the class. And there are a lot of moments where if there's something that targets African-Americans or people of color or minorities, the whole room turns to me, so what's your point of view? What's the Black point of view on that?

JEFF HOROWITZ: For many students, the experience on campus is inseparable from their experience in the community. Mark Jones is a student from Mississippi finishing his second semester. He asked that we change his last name. Mark says he doesn't really feel in danger here, but he recalls one time he thinks he was stopped by police because he's Black. And there's been another more frightening encounter with a random car on the street.

MARK JONES: It's just a shunning experience of you have a person of-- a white person to just come out and just maybe just call-- blatantly call you nigger.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Other students also relate experiences they thought they were born too late to see. Students say they've been told to leave stores and restaurants, sometimes being told that baggy clothes are not allowed. Sandra Chesebro is in a unique position to lend credence to some of the stories. She's a white Midwesterner who grew up near Rochester.

Chesebro is a social work professor who taught for a while in the deep South. She moved back three years ago to teach at Saint Cloud State. For one year, she ran a small exchange program to bring students here from a historically Black college in Mississippi. Two students came in the fall of 2000.

SANDRA CHESEBRO: I was with the students. I took them places like restaurants and saw differences in the way I had been previously treated in restaurants and how I was treated when I was with these students.

JEFF HOROWITZ: What did you find?

SANDRA CHESEBRO: It was a much more sit in the back of the restaurant kind of approach.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Chesebro says she was shocked by the experience and it's hardened her resolve to find funding for the program once again. Nothing much shocks Mike Davis anymore.

MIKE DAVIS: I made a lot of mistakes, but this was the biggest. It's been a nightmare for 13 years.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Davis moved to Saint Cloud 13 years ago to teach cultural diversity. He was one of the authors of the letter declaring Saint Cloud hazardous to Blacks.

MIKE DAVIS: Then you have the people saying, OK, why would you not want a student of color to come here? OK, they can't even deal with the problems that they have right now. So why would you want to bring more students here so they can suffer?

JEFF HOROWITZ: Davis is not just angry with whites. He's frustrated with apathetic Black colleagues and the new university president who's Japanese-American. But when asked what the biggest single problem is, he points to the police. Davis has spent years counseling students who say they've been profiled or harassed. Davis himself says he had a gun pulled on him during a routine traffic stop.

Davis and the administration don't have many constructive conversations these days. But when asked if there is one symbolic gesture university President Roy Saigo can make to set things back on a constructive path, Davis has a clear answer.

MIKE DAVIS: You know what I would like to see him do? I would like to see him make public, make a public speech plus put it in writing, that any police officer in Saint Cloud or any of the professors on campus also who treat students of color badly, he will prosecute them in the court of law, same with landlords. That's leadership.

JEFF HOROWITZ: President Saigo says things are rarely so clear cut but he will always stand by his students.

ROY SAIGO: We are being very aggressive in reviewing these kinds of issues. And I will tell you that if I hear something like this and I have information, I'll be right there. We do not sit around. We do not hold harm. We get right down to it, and we take care of it.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Saigo has been president for a year and a half. He inherited a racial harmony task force that puts campus and city people together. He says the group is actively working on police credibility problems. Saigo says he was encouraged by a recent meeting with the new Saint Cloud police chief.

But the police department has been damaged in the past year by a rumor that made the rounds at Saint Cloud State. Some Black faculty believed the previous chief said 90% of all arrests in Saint Cloud are people of color. A police spokesman says the chief never would have said that because it's not true.

Captain Richard Wilson says the figure might be close if it were only referring to the drug trade, but that's just a small portion of the overall crime in the area. Wilson says officers are taught in no uncertain terms that profiling makes poor police work.

RICHARD WILSON: Are there some biases in this department? Of course, there are. I mean, these cops are coming out of the community. So do we have some biases in the community? Sure, we do. And to say there's none here in the PD, no, that's not true. But do we work and train to avoid that and to prevent that and to get them to do the job appropriately? Yes.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Wilson says recruiting minorities is proving extremely difficult, but it's a major priority. There are Hispanics on the force. And now that a city hiring freeze has just been lifted, Saint Cloud is set to swear in its only Black police officer. The candidate happens to be one of the only students of color ever to take advantage of a criminal justice internship program at Saint Cloud State. Prof. Dick Andzenge helps run the program. It's been slow going, but he says it's one of many positive things that get overlooked amid the complaints.

DICK ANDZENGE: I've stayed in St. Cloud for 10 years. I have raised children here. And as I have worked with people in the community on different projects, I have seen people have been very happy to work with me.

JEFF HOROWITZ: President Saigo points to increasing diversity among students, faculty, and administrators that's bringing what he calls a sea of change to the school and the city.

ROY SAIGO: I'm not a Pollyanna. But at the same time, let's not forget that so many 80% or 90% of the situations that occur in campus and off campus are terrific and so warm and wonderful.

JEFF HOROWITZ: And even those with stories to tell are determined not to dwell on the negative. Mark Jones, who was called a nigger in his first few months here, refuses to let the experience disrupt his education.

MARK JONES: If someone thought they could stop me from finishing this program out, I'll tell them quit. You try it. Try and stop me from finishing this program out because this here is what I'm here for. I came to get a piece of this pie too.

JEFF HOROWITZ: Mark will return to classes at Saint Cloud State in the fall. Jeff Horowitz, Minnesota Public Radio, Saint Cloud.