Second bias incident reported
Two students were targeted and verbally harassed in the Class of 1953 Commons on Wednesday, the second reported bias incident this week.
By Michelle Deloison Baum
Published on Friday, January 25, 2013
Two students were targeted and verbally harassed in the Class of 1953 Commons on Wednesday, according to a campus email from Interim President Carol Folt and Dean of the College Charlotte Johnson.
This incident marks the second bias incident reported this week, following racist graffiti scrawled in the Choates residential hall cluster on Saturday.
The incident occurred during lunchtime in ’53 Commons, according to Justin Anderson, director of media relations for the College.
“Two students reported that another student walked by them, made eye contact and verbally harassed them by speaking gibberish that was perceived to be mock Chinese,” he said.
The students went to the Office of Pluralism and Leadership, where they were encouraged to report the incident through Maxient, an online program, Anderson said.
Upon receiving the information, Safety and Security immediately contacted the students and launched an investigation to identify the perpetrator.
Efforts to respond to bias incidents on campus are conducted through the Bias Incident Response Team, according to OPAL director Alysson Satterlund. While Safety and Security conducts the investigations, OPAL provides the impacted students with support, according to Anderson.
A program will be held on Friday afternoon in response to the incident for students to discuss their experiences with bigotry and ignorance on campus.
Satterlund said in an email that the program will begin the process of acknowledging that bias, hate and intolerance are impacting our campus climate and should not be ignored.
Including the two most recent events, there have been four reported bias incidents since last Spring, according to Anderson.
Stephanie Crocker ’12 said that this second bias incident in one week indicates the need for the whole community to react, rather than solely those who were targeted.
“It is certainly not freak incidents,” she said. “Over my time at Dartmouth there have been regular occurrences, but these are the most regular occurrences I have seen. It’s certainly not getting better, so we need to fix it.”
Jonele Conceicao ’14 said she was surprised and appalled that the incident occurred at a school that strives to be progressive.
Latesia Manuel ’14 was less surprised, however, and said she did not consider it “outside the realm of possibilities.” She said she would like to see a stronger response from the administration and less student apathy.
“Students need to flood as many outlets as they can to say that these things are not isolated and to demand more forums and collective action,” she said.
After reviewing reports on campus climate improvement initiatives at Princeton University, Cornell University and Yale University, Satterlund said in an email that the reports vary based on what campuses emphasize.
Cornell, like Dartmouth, uses Maxient to allow students to file complaints electronically, according to Darren Jackson, program manager of inclusion and compliance initiatives at Cornell.
Incidents are publicized on a website that is updated monthly and is accessible only to Cornell students, faculty and staff, he said. Incidents that are not considered to have an impact on the community as a whole are not reported in Cornell’s publications.
Jackson said that Cornell’s program focuses on education rather than discipline. It is especially hard to follow up on incidents when the perpetrator cannot be identified, he said.
While some students have expressed concern that Cornell’s administration does not take bias incidents seriously enough, Jackson said he believes that the administration takes the necessary steps.
Jackson could not disclose the numbers of reported incidents at the university, but he said that there have been incidents of racist writings in residential halls, including swastikas engraved in elevators and chalkings with racial slurs.
Dickinson College, meanwhile, has developed a formalized process for bias incident reporting through the Bias Education and Response Team, which consists of three faculty members, according to diversity initiatives director Paula Lima-Jones. While BERT is only a little over a year old, it is moving to incorporate more faculty and students this semester.
The number of bias incidents is unknown, but Lima-Jones said that two to four bias incidents are reported on the Dickinson campus each year.
BERT works on conflict resolutions between individuals and with the larger community.
“If something happens in a residence hall, we find it important to bring the whole residence hall to get a sense of how to repair the community and reestablish our sense of community,” she said.
Because prosecuting perpetrators is not always possible, BERT’s aims to restore a sense of safety for victims and witnesses of incidents.
“Oftentimes what makes these instances difficult is they might not necessarily violate law,” Lima-Jones said.
Brown University students can report a bias incident through Brown Public Safety to the Office of Student Life or to the LGBTQ Resource Center, according to Brown’s website on Queer Alliance. Princeton students can speak with confidential consultants, according to the university’s website.
The Dartmouth has become a complete joke.
You cannot write a story based on only the claims of one side when the incident involved “gibberish” which was “perceived” to be something.
Why don’t we find out what ACTUALLY happened before we publish and inflammatory article.
I am not condoning “bias incidents,” but everyone knows that there are always three sides to every story… what each party says… and then there is the truth…
I recognize that during one’s tenure on campus, it is easy to forget that Dartmouth exists in a larger world. However, students and The Dartmouth must recognize that they are ambassadors of the College. What students say or do and what The Dartmouth publishes reflects on the College (the same goes for alums). The community (students, organizations, alums) must be mindful of this because we all carry the Dartmouth name – damaging it by disgusting actions (like “bias incidents” or irresponsible reporting) should not be tolerated by the community.
To The Dartmouth – this is a great article about the systems in place, but completely ridiculous reporting about the incident in question. The incident has no business being published until there is unbiased factual information to report.
By Responsible Reporting on Jan 25 | 10:07 am
Students are crying for justice, just like the American people were crying for justice when Trayvon Martin was shot. In this case a pledge was beaten by a Black fraternity and because of that frat’s race they were let off the hook. Now the students of Dartmouth are up in arms. Hate has been brought to this campus and now only by holding Alpha Phi Alpha accountable can it be cleansed!
By Only Option on Jan 25 | 10:40 am
As an administration, you know you’re on the wrong track when the article that objectively reports on a measure you took with serious intentions reads like an Onion article.
By Anon on Jan 25 | 10:42 am
I do not think anyone could have ever thought that the outrage of the pardoning of Alpha Phi Alpha would be this severe.
We… Were… Wrong…
Dean Johnson’s decision to let Alpha go for whatever reason has clearly struck a nerve with campus. For a longtime students have speculated that African Americans were held to a lower standard by Parkhurst, but now they know it for a fact. Dean Johnson has destroyed race relations on this campus. This will only get better when she is gone.
By What a world… on Jan 25 | 10:45 am
There is one fact that no one dares bring up in the public media: All this racism started after Alpha Phi Alpha got off with a wink and a nod from Dean Johnson after physically abusing its pledges.
Now, students are up in arms about the clear motives behind the decision and the national media is starting to focus on Dartmouth’s racism (The NYTimes just emailed a few alums asking for comments)
It’s a sad day to be a Dartmouth student. A sad day indeed.
By Open Your Eyes on Jan 25 | 11:52 am
This comment has nothing to do about the above article, as much as it does with everyone blaming APA’s “pardon”…
What exactly was their pardon again?
SAE gets caught doing some seriously health hazardous things, has had 3 offenses in the past 2 years prior and gets put on probation, but can still participate in rush. All other charges got dropped.
APA gets caughts making someone do pushups, has had no prior offenses, and gets put on probation, and also canNOT have intake for a year.
How is that different again?
By Geez on Jan 25 | 11:53 am
I don’t understand what everyone is so up in arms about. Dean Johnson has clearly set a standard at this college that minorities are to be treated differently. Unfortunately, people are now just finding out that this goes both ways.
By D ‘05 on Jan 25 | 11:55 am
This is not particularly relevant to the article but does anyone else see how poor the alignment of the tiles are on the two faces of that column?
By Off topic on Jan 25 | 12:32 pm
When someone speaks gibberish to someone who looks Asian, Carol Folt and Dean Johnson respond in a day. When Black Fraternity forces a new member to speak to no one outside the organization, savagely beats him with a wooden spoon, refers to him as a decimal point because he is less than a number, have as heavy objects placed on his chest until he almost suffocates we hear nothing.
Not a word, why is that. It because Dean Johnson, knew that she was going to gives an Alpha a free pass on her behavior.
We all need to learn that actions have consequences. Dean Johnson these racist attacks are the consequence of your actions!
By Double Standard? on Jan 25 | 12:43 pm
SAE gets caught doing some seriously health hazardous things, has had 3 offenses in the past 2 years prior and gets put on probation, but can still participate in rush. All other charges got dropped.
APA gets caughts making someone do pushups, has had no prior offenses, and gets put on probation, and also canNOT have intake for a year.
yet nobody seems to want to acknowledge this as much as they want to find a reason to blame minorities for creating racism. huh? so please… somebody logging on to blame black people for asians and blacks being harassed, make me understand how any of this is justifiable or logical.
By still trying to understand on Jan 25 | 12:57 pm
Geez, your fact-twisting in the anonymous comments section is deplorable.
For those who care: SAE did not get “caught” doing anything. They were alleged to have done health-hazardous things 3 years prior. However, when the COS hearing came, the person who brought the allegations refused to actually testify in the hearing.
APA, on the other hand, was alleged to have physically beaten pledges during the current term. The person bringing the allegations was cooperative and did indeed testify at the hearing.
Also, APA is allowed to have intake next fall.
Please check your facts next time. It objectively seems to me that APA may have gotten off easier
By Real Facts on Jan 25 | 12:58 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I find these recent racist incidents deplorable. I feel the need however to clarify that the actions Alpha do not even come close to those that came against SAE.
27 members of SAE had letters mailed to their families threatening to expelled them for Hazing. S&S was stationed outside of SAE 24/7 and harassed its members. Including knocking on their doors at 3am during winters finals period to ask some important questions.
After hiring the meanest most vile COS investigator at Dartmouth. April Thompson was personally given receipts, videos, emails, and text messages, phone records, Facebook chats, Gmail messages, and Dartmouth ID swipe histories, and ATM camera photos that proved several of Andrew Lohse’s statements were physically impossible.
What did Lohse say when S&S asked him about this evidence??? “I cannot comment because I am under an exclusive agreement with Rolling Stone magazine”
Only after proving themselves Innocent and paying $90,000 to some of the scummiest people on go.Dartmouth’s campus did we manage to crawl out from under the bus. And we still got 3 terms probation for events that happened 3 years ago!
When accusations were made against Alpha what happened? 3 terms of social probation. Comparing the two is like comparing being stuck in traffic to surviving the holocaust.
By SAE 13 on Jan 25 | 2:15 pm
Sorry guys this is my fault. For the record I wasn’t being racist, I was just too drunk and trying to ask for directions to the gross machine.
By Lazy College Senior on Jan 25 | 2:20 pm
This would never happen at Yale.
By Yalestudent on Jan 27 | 10:34 pm
I can’t get behind this whole “Alpha got let off easy” routine… Cocaine is ILLEGAL and literally if we were anywhere else besides Dartmouth we would see anyone with any knowledge of drug use arrested and charged. This whole SAE debacle happened because the cops were called on Lohse’s ass for his blatant drug use.
You don’t think APA has faced justice? Awkward, I could say the same thing about SAE
By hah on Jan 27 | 11:02 pm
Hazing is illegal, too.
By @hah on Jan 28 | 8:51 am
Seriously, I’d hate to go to Dartmouth.
By Haha this school… on Feb 1 | 1:00 am
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~opal/about/staff_bios.html
What a group! You’d think, or rather hope, that the Ivies would endeavor to accept students that didn’t need 4 years of being constantly consoled by nannies.
As Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know the rest of the story.” or now you know why the cost of education is so high.
By Loretta Languavo on Feb 7 | 2:40 pm