On Monday, May 20, two dozen students picketed the offices of the president of the University of Washington, calling on him to rein in the campus police.

Invading President Richard McCormick's office, they presented a list of six demands to fix what they described as an endemic problem of racial profiling at the UW.

There was one conspicuous absence in the crowd, though: Humza Chaudhry, president of the Muslim Student Association.

Chaudhry's absence was strange because, with his beard and white Kufi knit hat--signs of his devout Islam faith--he's arguably been the poster child of the movement against racial profiling ever since April 11, when he was kicked out of a university building by four UW police officers during a contentious lecture on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Chaudhry, a UW senior, alleged that the officers used excess force, and that one of the officers repeatedly drew attention to his Jewish heritage in an attempt to intimidate him. Chaudhry complained to UW President Richard McCormick and to the UWPD, and publicized his accusations throughout the activist community.

"Humza really created a huge community for the issue of racial profiling. People started rallying around the issue," said Tami Pratt, an organizer with the campus group Students Together Against Racism (STAR), which sponsored Monday's protest.

"If all of our demands aren't met, we will continue with the direct action. It's all or nothing. I don't think there's any flexibility there," Pratt said.

In contrast to STAR's focus on protest and confrontation, Chaudhry, a soft-spoken biochemistry major who says his activism springs from his faith, takes a much quieter approach, relying on letters, the media, and one-on-one meetings.

Chaudhry's style gets results: After several weeks of discussion, the administration agreed to his demands to sponsor a forum on racial profiling. They also agreed to mandate a new sensitivity training seminar on dealing with immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia, even before the results of their investigation into the charge of racial profiling were completed.

"Humza was anxious to work with us," McCormick said.

"I'm satisfied, nominally," Chaudhry said. "It's kind of a given that I'll be much happier if there's an apology, but I'm pretty much done with this issue."

Though Chaudhry wishes STAR luck, he says there are only so many hours in the day.