Do universities/colleges respond well to Bias-Related incidents?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I am from Cornell University. I along with a group of other students are interested in creating a presentation to the Campus Life Council on how to better address bias-related incidents(sexism, racism, ablism, etc) on campus. There is already a system in place, but we believe that there could be a better process to address bias reports.</p>

<p>What we would like to do is ask the CC community what their schools do to address such incidents. Your ideas would give us a diversity of perspectives to compile and include in our presentation. </p>

<p>On your campus do you witness any bias incidents?</p>

<p>What does your university/college do to address them?</p>

<p>Are there student groups on campus that address such incidents?</p>

<p>Do you feel that your campus, students and administration alike, is responsive to bias-related incidents?</p>

2

<p>I have never witnessed any bias-related incidents.</p>

<p>We have clubs and organizations that provide support and a sense of belonging to a certain group (african-american groups, hispanic groups, lgbt groups, etc.)</p>

<p>I think these organizations keep incidents from happening just because most of them represent such a strong portion of the student body. However, if something were to come up, my campus would definitely be responsive...</p>

3

<p>Over here there were some incidents relating to international students being discriminated because of their 'accent's. My school takes it quite seriously...don't know the exact policy though.</p>

4

<p>and what school are you from?</p>

5

<p>Have you done research into how other colleges have handled it? You may get some ideas from them.</p>

<p>Correct me if I am wrong: Williams recently with the n word graffiti; Vassar with a noose (not too sure of this one); Whitman with blackface; Middlebury with gay issues; Kenyon with swaztikas.</p>

6

<p>Depending on the severity of the case, police are notified (such as in twomules's examples).</p>

<p>I think that the main problem with those is that people are afraid to report them because 1) they are scared to or 2) it was "no big deal".</p>

7

<p>A few years ago at CMU the black student organization invited a militantly anti-Semitic speaker. Didn't really go well with the campus community, but the school didn't do much.</p>

<p>A year prior or so the school paper's April Fool's edition ran a comic with the "n word" edited in. Didn't go well with the campus community, but the school didn't do much.</p>

8

<p>thanks for the responses! I would appreciate more</p>

9

<p>Hi -- I go to Vassar and was going to comment on the noose incident. They responded very thoroughly (possibly a bit TOO thoroughly, but in that kind of situation, too much response is better than too little) with multiple campus forums, emails sent out to the campus condemning the incident, etc. It showed up in editorials in the newspaper as well.</p>

10

<p>We've had nooses and swastikas seen in the university I attend and my school likes to think nothing of it, as if it never happened.</p>

11

<p>interesting...the Vassar incident seems like one that affects the whole campus. I guess it's harder to deal with individual or isolated bias incidents</p>

12

<p>Obviously you may not want to answer this, but the only information I've got on how Cornell handles these things is what's on the school website and that doesn't really make me sure I understand how things really work. I'm wondering what it is that you object to about how things are handled now.</p>

13

<p>We do not object. It is just that we wanted to try to improve it so that it will serve the students better.</p>

14

<p>there was a fair amount of bias incidents in columbia first semester, esp. at Teachers College. They get blow way out of proportion, and everyone knows what was written or hung or whatnot, because it gets publicized in the papers.</p>