Students form initiative against intimidation

For the past three weeks there has been a movement on campus to establish a Students' Initiative Against Intimidation. The aim of the initiative, which is also the name of the students' group, is to create an anti-intimidation clause in the Tufts charter that applies to and is observed by all student groups.

The group was co-founded by Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate representative Cho-Yau Ling and Debate Society Vice-President Aravinda Rao

A recent intimidation incident at the University of Virginia (UVA) -- where Daisy Lundy, an African-American Student Council candidate, was attacked in front of her car in a school parking lot -- encouraged Ling and Rao to make a much more concerted effort to raise awareness at Tufts.

The initiative is not yet formally recognized, but there are plans to apply for funding early next semester.

"If you look at the number of bias incidences that occur and the things that are said in these incidences, you will eventually see that the Tufts community isn't as safe as people think it is," Ling said, although he was unwilling to give specific examples of intimidation.

One of the main goals of the initiative is to raise awareness at Tufts among students and student groups. "As long as Tufts students take responsibility to rid these sorts of biases on campus, then we've taken the best and largest steps at making our campus free of intolerance of other's diversity," Ling said.

The Tufts charter currently has an anti-discrimination clause, but no anti-intimidation clause. "As a Bias Intervention Team member and as a senator, I am shocked and horrified at the number of bias incidences that occur on campus," Ling said.

Though they would not specifically define intimidation, both Ling and Rao agreed that intimidation is usually subtler, and that there should be a distinct line drawn between intimidation and discrimination. For example, threatening verbal abuse or offensive graffiti may not be easily detectable, and should be considered intimidation.

The group has already drafted a basic outline of the clause, and there are plans to show the draft to senators and leaders of student organizations for approval. Once it has been discussed, the hope is that a contract to commit to the clause will be signed by representatives of all of the student organizations.

Such a contract, Ling and Rao said, will bring issues of intimidation into the discussions of student groups and generally raise awareness of the issue. If any group breaks the clause, there may be some sort of enforcement.

There are already several anti-intimidation organizations active on campus, such as bias intervention programs and the peer educators. Because the administration and faculty run these programs, the new initiative is the first entirely student-run anti-intimidation program to be attempted.

This is another driving reason behind the establishment of the new organization, Ling and Rao said. According to them the administration's programs fail to reach the level at which intimidation incidents are occurring -- the level of the students. "The first step we have to take is to first reach out and get students and student organizations to deal with this problem on their own, and not let the administration do it for us," Ling said.

The most startling aspect of the UVA incident, Rao said, is that UVA is a very liberal campus. This means, she said, that something similar could easily happen at Tufts.

"If this could happen at UVA, why couldn't it happen at Tufts? Events like those of UVA can only be an alarm for other Universities to take action for their own community. The Students' Initiative Against Intimidation is just one of the many actions that must occur to make this campus safe and to ensure that incidences like that at UVA do not occur," Ling said.

As a Hindu living in Saudi Arabia for 15 years, Rao has had personal experience with discrimination and intimidation. A safe atmosphere is very important, she said, and the way to achieve one is to build an organization that does not "talk down." The group needs to provide a common focus on intimidation instead of a handful of programs operating at once. "Pre-emptive measures need to be taken," Rao said.