Amidst allegations that Tufts' Bias Intervention Program (BIP) has paid too little attention to racial bias incidents on campus, current BIP peer educators say new measures have paved the way to better communication with the Tufts community.
"With regards to racial incidents, I feel that there is a lack of publicity," said junior Ashley Mitchell, a former member of the BIP's peer educator program. Several racial bias incidents that occurred on campus have been virtually ignored by the BIP and the Tufts community, she said.
Mitchell cited one example, where perpetrators wrote "fuck black women" on the front door of the Capen House, Tufts' Africana Center. The BIP failed to publicize the event and the Tufts community learned about it through student-run media outlets, she said.
"That's the problem: people don't know what's going on," Mitchell said.
Lisa Coleman, Director of the African American Center, was unavailable for comment.
"For something like that to be written on Capen House's door, and for the Black Women's Collective not even to know about it until they read the Daily" is unacceptable, Mitchell said.
Mitchell attributed "communication" to be "the biggest problem" behind the BIP's lack of response to such occurrences of racial bias.
But current BIP members say policies implemented this semester have helped keep the spotlight on racial bias incidents. "I think in general our approach this semester has been more proactive than reactive. Our events this semester were meant to combat racial bias before it occurs," said senior Alex Weissman, a peer educator.
BIP-sponsored events, such as the "Expressions of Multiraciality" event, "were meant to raise awareness of what it's like to be multiracial on campus," Weissman said.
Senior peer educator Sara Arcaya said BIP discussion topics this semester "have ranged from specific bias incidents on campus, to stereotypes in the media, to the multiracial experience."
Despite Mitchell's allegations, Arcaya said BIP "regularly updates the campus about bias incidents that have occurred and the latest report was released last week."
Both Weissman and Arcaya said communication between the BIP and Tufts students, faculty, and administrators will improve in the near future. "Hopefully in the future we'll be working more closely with the community," Weissman said.
"We've been working on setting up online reporting so that the process is more efficient, and the new site will allow us to notify the campus more frequently about reported bias incidents," Arcaya said.
But Mitchell said "there have been problems with BIP since spring semester of 2003. People don't want to be politically insensitive and hurt anyone's feelings, and focus on certain issues of the day, but that forces other issues to the back-burner," Mitchell said.
While this semester has seen more homophobic bias incidents on campus than racial ones, "a single racial incident still should be as important as a homophobic one," Mitchell said. Anti-gay incidents seem to have taken precedence recently, she said.
Additionally, racial bias has not been limited to the Capen House slur since racism often plays a secondary role in other incidents, like anti-gay ones, Mitchell said.
Senior peer educator Sarah Sahn said she understood how it would be possible to perceive the situation as Mitchell does. "I do feel that racial incidents were not publicized adequately [this semester], but to say that they went nearly ignored is not accurate," she said.
The number of anti-gay incidents this semester meant that on-campus homophobia was publicized and debated through forums other than the BIP, Sahn said.
Arcaya said BIP has in no way favored one community over another. "We have paid equal attention to the LGBT community and communities of color. Race played a central role in our training for the [resident assistants] and in two of our programs this semester," she said.
Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said "there has been more difference of opinion in the way some things should be approached," among BIP team members this semester than in previous ones. Reitman said he "disagreed that there was any sort of cover-up" or purposeful withholding of information from the Peer Educators or the Tufts community, however.
A current member of the BIP's peer educator program, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the BIP had communication problems vis-? -vis racial bias incidents, particularly an inefficient dialogue between peer educators and Marisel Perez, a BIP administrator.
"I spoke with [Mitchell] after she said she had reported the [Capen House incident] to the BIP," the anonymous peer educator said. During that conversation, the peer educator learned of three separate racial bias incidents that had been reported to the BIP.
"That same night I sent out an e-mail to the [peer leader] list-serv asking if anyone else on the team had heard about [them]...everyone responded they hadn't," the peer educator said. Perez said she told the peer educator team about the racial bias incidents, but in so subtle a manner that they must have misinterpreted or not heard her, according to the peer educator.
"Perez alleges [the Capen House incident and similar ones] were confidential, but that's not true. It can only be confidential if there is a judicial hearing, but the perpetrators are anonymous anyway," the peer educator said.
Perez had not responded to requests for comment by press time.
"If we are part of the team, [Bias Intervention administrators] should trust us enough to share the information about bias incidents," the peer educator said. "I don't think that the concept of the bias intervention team is flawed, but I think that we need to work on the structure of the team and how to make it more efficient."
"I'm positive that we [as peer educators] would have responded [to this racial bias incidents] had we known about them," the peer educator said.
Sahn, who said she spoke only for herself and not for the group, said there were "some breakdowns in communication that have at times prevented peer educators from doing our job." No single person was responsible, she said.
