A Douglas Hall door guard was battered during the weekend in the latest in a string of incidents that police say are caused by non-students attending NIU black Greek dances.

The guard was checking a Douglas Hall A-wing crash door when two men started banging on it, said University Police Lt. Ron Williams. The men saw the guard and hid, he said.

The guard heard a noise, but couldn’t see anyone and waited until another woman let them in. When the security guard confronted them, one of the men pushed her in the face and they both fled the building, police said.

But problems like this, including the recent mugging of a pizza delivery person in Lincoln Hall, aren’t caused by NIU students, said UP Capt. James Webster.

“Just about every weekend, there’s a black Greek dance at the Holmes Student Center, and the problem is with out-of-towners,” he said.

Webster said several recent battery incidents stem from the dances. “We’ve taken knives away from people. Almost without fail, these are black males not enrolled at NIU,” he said.

Still, the problem isn’t racial, Webster said. “Any group that would host events this large would cause a problem,” he said.

NIU had a similar problem in the 1970s with high school students playing pinball in the student center because there were no other close outlets for pinball, Webster said.

Monique Bernoudy, academic counselor to the Black Greek Council, said she’s aware of the problem.

“We agree that there are off-campus people causing the disturbances, but that’s beyond the control of our students,” she said.

Webster said one possible solution might be to restrict attendance at the dances to NIU students.

But “to say to people, ‘You can come, but your friends can’t’—that makes it difficult and I think it’s unfair,” Bernoudy said.