For a school that prides itself on being open?minded and politically correct, name calling, graffiti and harassment based on race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity all occur frequently at Tufts. These acts constitute bias incidents and are dealt with through a variety of student and administrative channels.
Reported incidents that are deemed bias incidents and consist of investigations that have been concluded are publically listed on WebCenter. According to the site, bias incidents "may but do not always include the use of slurs, derogatory language, or negative images. Incidents may include chalking, graffiti, images, written messages, the defacement or alteration of signs, posters, verbal epithets and violent acts." Last year, 27 total bias incidents were published on this list.
The incidents are processed individually and eventually compiled and summarized on WebCenter by the Administrative Contact Team.
This team is made up of four members, currently Associate Dean of Student Affairs Marisel Perez, Director of the Department of Diversity Education and Development Margery Davies, University President Anthony Monaco's Chief of Staff Michael Baenen and Director of the Office of Intercultural and Social Identities Program Katrina Moore.
According to Perez, a bias incident can be reported in three ways: by an individual through WebCenter, by a resident assistant (RA) or resident director (RD) through an Office of Residential Life and Learning (ORLL) report or by the police. All reports go immediately to Perez, who then reaches out to the person reporting the incident to offer support.
"Some of this stuff can be hurtful and I want to make sure that the student, if they want to talk to somebody else in addition to myself for counseling, they can do that," Perez said. "Some students don't want that, they say 'I'm okay, I just want to make sure somebody knows,' and I respect that."
Perez transfers the report to the Administrative Contact Team, which reviews the incident to ensure that it contains bias according to definitions of bias from Massachusetts' anti?discrimination law, according to Davies. Davies said that the team's decision on bias in a given incident is very basic.
"It's a very light filter, making that decision. Did that affect one of the target groups? Did it actually happen? We need to have a certain amount of vetting of reports," she said. "What one person perceives as a bias incident may not be perceived by another [as a] a bias incident."
The Team decides on an appropriate response, which can include investigation, judicial action or mediation, depending on the incident. Gender?related incidents can be referred to the Office of Equal Opportunity for investigation, and incidents that are classified as hate crimes, meaning that a law has been broken, are referred to the Office of Judicial Affairs.
Filing a judicial complaint, though, is a separate process from reporting a bias incident. If the event is particularly serious or public, it may warrant a university?wide statement from the Dean of Student Affairs Bruce Reitman or even the University President, depending on its severity.
"Every so often, something really serious happens. The other things are still serious because they contribute to the atmosphere and climate at Tufts, [but] there's a difference between seeing something scrawled in a bathroom and being attacked," Davies said.
Students Promoting Equality, Awareness and Compassion (SPEAC) also provides an educational response to bias incidents. SPEAC is a student group under the Office of Student Affairs that offers a variety of programming to further an open and accepting campus environment, in addition to providing training for Orientation leaders (OL) and resident assistants. Perez serves as advisor to SPEAC, which receives updates on current bias incidents on which to base its programs.
In addition, Perez runs mediation between the affected parties in the bias incident, if both sides agree to engage in mediation. She emphasized her commitment to educational methods toward resolving the hurt and anger resulting from a bias incident.
"I believe in education, because to punish somebody without processing what happened, it creates anger and resentment. That's my philosophy," Perez said. "Even when mediation has been reached and requirements have been fulfilled ... it takes time to come to terms with oneself and resolve feelings."
At the end of the year, the Contact Team publishes the complete list of finalized bias incidents on WebCenter with summaries of the event. According to Perez, the content of the incident summary has changed in recent years to become more descriptive, including specific locations, although the people involved remain anonymous.
She cited past debate within the Team about whether to publish full expletives involved in incidents, with some saying that doing so would emphasize the hurtful potential of the word. The Team decided to retain the words with asterisks.
The Team also reviews patterns in the type and locations of bias incidents. Perez and Davies both referenced a high number of gender?related incidents this past year.
Correspondingly, SPEAC has focused its programming around gender, including its RA and OL training. In addition, when incidents cluster in certain halls, SPEAC may run focused events in those residences.
Both Davies and Perez affirm that this system of reporting and publicizing bias incidents attempts to create awareness on campus, with the ultimate aim of prevention of bias incidents.
"We want to try and create a campus where people feel comfortable, where they're not going to be subject to things like this. We can't stop it from happening but we do take it seriously," Davies said. "I'm hoping that having his system will make people think about things they do and say."
SPEAC shares similar goals with the administration. According to SPEAC co?coordinator junior Bianca Blakesley, the group strives to raise awareness about bias at Tufts.
"Our goal is to get the word out about bias incidents and raise awareness that they do happen, and if you feel like something is targeting you as a member of a social identity, you have ways to report it and you have agency in that," she said. "Also we need to get that dialogue going with students who aren't that engaged with those issues, just to promote an environment not just of tolerance, but of inclusion."
Another focus of the group is to bring together students who have experienced the various forms of bias at Tufts and those who have not.
"The reason that I do SPEAC and I really like SPEAC is that Tufts is an open?minded and accepting campus...for the majority of people, but it's not for everyone," SPEAC co?coordinator Bryn Clark, a junior, said. "Having events that bring together those two groups, to really try and get different people at our events, is one of our biggest missions."
Blakesley said that SPEAC's association with the administration provides legitimacy, but its identity as a student group offers access to student dialogue.
"Whereas the administration definitely takes on a different role in disciplinary actions, we want to have conversations with everybody, we're not going to attack anyone for their views or perspectives," she said. "We want to educate our peers and also find out what the general campus climate is."
However, both Blakesley and Clark see their role in SPEAC as complimenting the administration's aims in the reporting and publicizing bias incidents within the community.
"I think that if nothing happened, if there wasn't some adult or administrator you could go to validate that experience and make it public, then you would see a lot less people speaking up about these things, people internalizing them and it having a more negative affect on their life," Clark said. "The administration's job is dealing with things individually and SPEAC's job is learning from that and then trying to translate that into a larger atmosphere on campus."
Until last year, SPEAC was known as the Bias Education and Awareness Team, or BEATBias, whose programming responded directly to each bias incident.
According to Clark, BEATBias became SPEAC in order to widen its scope and more proactively improve tolerance and understanding at Tufts.
SPEAC's past programming has included the Tufts Identity Project, a display of photos of students with their answers to how they feel most people see them, and who they really are. This year, SPEAC will publish a booklet containing the answers to a broad survey of Tufts students concerning social identity.
According to Blakesley, 700 students were interviewed on topics like their sense of belonging on campus, interracial interactions and hookup culture.
SPEAC is also putting together a documentary film with interviews of students about the levels of tolerance or bias at Tufts.
Despite the different efforts of the administration and of SPEAC to combat bias at Tufts, bias persists and manifests itself in different forms.
"I think there's a lot of different discourse on this campus about Tufts being oversensitive, and it's made fun of in a very patronizing way," Clark said. "I think that is a huge problem because it stifles this campus from talking about those issues in an actually constructive way."
In particular, humor and consequent reactions contribute to the endurance of stereotypes and bias.
"People often use humor as a way to say joking about this is okay, but humor can also be a silencing mechanism," said Blakesley. "We're not talking about the issues, we're normalizing disrespectful language, language that's harmful and demeaning to certain social groups."
Blakesley says that bias is everywhere, despite Tufts' general reputation of being an accepting and open community.
"I think Tufts students are very well?intentioned. I think the school politically is very liberal," she said. "But bias comes in many forms, and it comes implicitly and explicitly, and none of us whatsoever are free from bias."
