BLOGTOWN

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Portland State University (PSU) is dipping its toe into a contentious international feud.

This morning, PSU announced it has removed a few admission barriers for students from Saudi Arabia enrolled in Canadian universities who were ordered by their own government to leave the country this month.

The estimated 8,000 students were recalled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after Canada's foreign affairs minister criticized the Saudi government for arresting women's rights activist Samar Badawi on August 1. Not only did this critique inspire bin Salman to suspend all scholarship programs for Saudi students in Canada, it prompted him drop all new trade deals with Canadian businesses, stop the import of Canadian wheat, and freeze all direct flights to and from Canada.

In response, PSU has offered an expedited admissions process and waived the undergraduate admission fee ($52) for Saudi students transferring from Canada universities. At least five Saudi students living in Canada have applied to PSU—and 40 have show interest—since last Wednesday, according to PSU's International Admissions Counselor Karen Hanson.

A PSU website dedicated to this transfer process reads: "As an institution with a commitment to serving diverse learners, we are confident that PSU will provide an innovative environment for you to continue your studies."

PSU currently has 236 Saudi students—the second-largest international population on campus.

The Trump administration has avoided getting involved in the Canada-Saudi Arabia spat over human rights, for now. It's unknown which other US universities, if any, have specifically reached out to the displaced Saudi students to help them continue their education.

Asked if this decision is at all a statement on the international debate, PSU spokesperson Kurt Bedell said: "We just feel for these students, some of them are just two credits short from graduating and don't know what to do. We are just signaling our support to students from Saudi Arabia."

TriMet

The study, conducted by Portland State University (PSU) criminal justice professor Brian Renauer, specifically analyzes fare evasion citations issued by TriMet on the MAX between March 2016 to March 2018.

Over that period of time, 18 percent of fare evasion citations on the MAX were issued to Black riders. This is similar to the results of a 2016-2018 TriMet rider survey conducted on MAX trains that found 17.8 percent of fare-evaders were Black. Because those numbers are so close, PSU’s study concludes that TriMet does not have a racial bias problem with fare-related punishment.

But TriMet’s data collection process has some holes.

First, most citations were given at just a few specific MAX stations: over 50 percent of all fare enforcement occurs at just 10 stations in the whole system, which could affect the accuracy of the data. The focus on just a few MAX stations might also make it way easier to skip fare in most other parts of town.

Additionally, TriMet employees were the ones responsible for determining and recording a fare-evaders race, meaning the racial data could be inaccurate. The data also includes 2,000 riders (out of 48,000 total) whose race was marked “unknown,” simply because an inspector didn’t know a person’s race—Renauer says those incidents aren’t useful for study, and adds that the problem is one of inspector training.

The study on fare evasion and racial disparity, released Wednesday at a TriMet board meeting, also showed that Black riders have a disproportionate rate of “exclusions” — a punishment reserved for people who repeatedly break TriMet rules or skip paying fares. Excluded riders are banned from using any TriMet service for between 30 and 90 days.

Black riders accounted for 22.1 percent of exclusions over the past two years—about 4.3 percent higher than would be expected, considering that they only account for 17.8 percent of fare evaders. But Renauer says that disparity is explained by the small number of people with repeat violations. According to Renauer, there are about 56 Black chronic fare evaders who account for 26 percent of all Black exclusions. “If those repeat exclusions had only been excluded once, it would reduce the overall exclusion rate by 4 percent,” Renauer told the TriMet board at the Wednesday meeting.

Those 56 repeat violators aren’t the only constant reoffenders—each racial category had a significant number of people who got caught avoiding paying fare frequently. But the data shows that the repeat offenders among Black riders seem to skip paying fares on a more regular basis, which bloats the statistics for the overall category.