The alleged bias incident that occurred in the early morning hours of April 30 outside the Sigma Phi Epsilon (Sig Ep) house sent the Tufts campus reeling from the sudden, very public occurrence of alleged racism, even attracting the attention of national media.
Yet, this event may serve mainly to identify problems already present at the University, according to some.
The alleged racially-motivated assault of junior Riyadh Mohammed prompted a response in the form of an "anti-hate" rally on May 3. At the rally, senior Reem Assil, a "personal friend" of Mohammed's, said that the event was "emblematic of the racism, violence and scapegoating that occurs on campus every day."
History professor Steve Marrone, a member of the Oversight Panel on Race who also spoke at the rally, said he acknowledges that Tufts has a "problem" in this area. With regard to bias, he said, "I haven't had an experience at any other university like my experience at Tufts."
The Bias Intervention Team releases an annual list of the reported bias incidents that occurred on campus. This year's list consisted of 27 incidents, not including the event on April 30.
Dean of Students Bruce Reitman mentioned this high number of incidents at the community discussion that followed the rally, and said that racism may be even more prevalent because many incidents are not reported.
Sophomore Mitch Robinson, a member of the Emerging Black Leaders and the Black Men's Group, said he has noticed racism on campus. While there is open bias, he said, what is more prevalent are the "subtle things."
In his experience, he said, stereotypes are the most hurtful. He pointed to the stereotypes of African-Americans being genetically inclined toward athletic prowess and the assumption that African-Americans are accepted to academically strong institutions like Tufts because of affirmative action as two stereotypes he has come across.
According to Robinson, "a lot of ethnic groups don't really understand each other or take the time to understand each other."
Furthermore, with regard to the level of racism on campus, "certain pockets of students seem to be aware and others seem oblivious," said junior Ashley Mitchell, another speaker at the rally and a member of the Tufts Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
These pockets of awareness are generally limited to the students who are targeted, their friends, the Bias Intervention Team and the Dean of Students office, she said.
The reason there is so little knowledge of bias among students is because there is a lack of dialogue, according to Mitchell. This is because "people only talk to who they want to talk to, and there is a lack of collective community at Tufts, whereby everybody does not care about everybody," she said.
This racism, however, is not specific to Tufts. Relative to other schools, Marrone said, Tufts is not "at the bottom," but it is not the most open, either.
According to University President Lawrence Bacow, "Tufts is a microcosm of the world we inhabit. We are not a cocoon that insulates students from tensions that exist elsewhere." In a country where racism is prevalent, it follows that the same will be true for Tufts, he said.
Marrone said that racism in the United States is "profound and ubiquitous." Moreover, most of it operates "below the level of consciousness."
"It's something the privileged-especially white people-can ignore," he said. "And it's something that people of color can't ignore. Every one of their interactions with white people contains in it some of this racism."
As for the alleged expression of on-campus racism, there is widespread acknowledgement that the details are too murky to peg as violent racism. Freshman William Toner, who is being investigated in connection with the alleged assault of Mohammed, declined to comment, and neither the police nor the Dean of Student's investigations were complete at press time.
Both Bacow and Mitchell also declined to speak on the incident, and said that there was too little certain and available information.
Sophomore Dan McDermott, who was one of the organizers of the anti-hate rally and a friend of Mohammed's, said that he is "taking [his] friend's word for it" as to the details of the incident, insofar as it was "never about anything but the color of his skin."
He said that the political situation for Arabs has been less than favorable since the Gulf War and that there "has been a lot of normalization of this kind of [offensive] language [directed toward Arabs]."
"I can see [the alleged incident] happening. I see enough bullshit on campus, I see the news, I see what people read [about Arabs]," he said. "That stuff [about Mohammed] coming across drunk, I believe."
While he agreed that Mohammed did not return to the fraternity after being verbally assaulted the first time in order to "pow-wow with the frat brothers and show them why they were wrong," he said, "[Mohammed] knows he didn't want to pick a fight."
McDermott also said that he saw Mohammed the next day and "could see the physical evidence." He described his face as having cuts, bumps and bruises, and that he was having difficulty with his jaw. "You could tell he'd been in a fight," he said.
He acknowledged that alcohol and intoxication of the involved parties played a role, and "possibly" on the part of Mohammed as well. He also acknowledged that the chain of events as to who was the aggressor against whom is unclear.
Neither of these factors, however, are relevant to the true significance of the event, he said, which reduces to the importance of addressing the issue of racism. The fact that Mohammed was injured, he said, "wasn't the worst part."
Rather, it is "the fact that this happened in the first place," he said. "It makes me really, really uncomfortable to hear that racism was involved."
Indeed, according to Marrone, it is the racial slurs that Mohammed said he was called - which included "Saddam supporter" and "terrorist" - that are the basis of the issue at hand. "The fact that [racial epithets] can flow off someone's tongue like that, that's the problem," he said.
While the currently indefinite chain of events that morning makes it difficult to place the blame on any certain party, Reitman said that once these details are known, "we must do whatever we can to ensure that they are brought to justice."
Most parties hope that the high profile and severity of this event will help to make some changes at the University. "I am confident that once we have understood this incident, we will try to learn from it," Bacow said.
All parties said they agreed that education is the best way to at least mitigate the effects of the racism. Mitchell said that "there needs to be some type of communication mechanism that allows all students to know what is occurring, but at the same time will not de-sensitize them."
Marrone said that as a part of the Oversight Panel on Race, he has been encouraging departmental meetings to discuss race in the classroom.
Ultimately, however, he said he hopes to include education about race into the curriculum. According to him, "we are moving in that direction."
Moreover, Marrone believes the administration should be more vocal in its denouncement of such acts. "We need to have people in positions of authority saying that this is not acceptable," Marrone said. This will reduce the "racial enthusiasm" on campus, which leads people to impetuously look toward race in an argument.
Mitchell, however, said that while ignorance of other races and race relations is the main hurdle in reaching cooperation between groups, "you have to want to unlearn [that ignorance]."
People should certainly want this, she said. "You can't be worried walking around campus because you look like someone else," Mitchell said at the rally. In this situation, "everyone should be scared."
