Students gather to discuss bias incidents

In an effort to increase awareness and tolerance, Peer Educators of the Bias Intervention Program led open discussion at Hillel on Monday night to discuss hate crimes on campus.

The discussion follows the Nov. 3 publication of a Bias Incident Report, which detailed 13 "bias incidents" that occurred during the first half of the semester. The report, which normally appears at the end of the spring semester, was released a semester and a half early because of the high volume of incidents.

All of the incidents in the report apparently targeted the University's gay and Jewish communities.

Approximately 20 students attended the discussion.

Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, the executive director of Hillel and the University's Jewish chaplain, said the reaction to the publicity was positive. "People paid attention," he said. "They wanted to know what happened and were very concerned."

"We need publicity for these issues. Not talking about [them] only gives cover to the perpetrators," he said.

Peer Educators and sophomore Rachel Kraft suggested that the increase in the number of reported incidents was probably due to "a more public mechanism for reporting bias incidents." Peer Educators -- who are charged with combating hate crimes on campus -- agreed that incidents such as those that were reported probably occurred just as often as before, but in the past they were not as likely to be reported to the University.

. Two of the incidents that targeted Jews took place during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, when unknown perpetrators knocked down two Sukkahs -- wooden hut-like structures used to commemorate the period of wandering following the Jewish exodus from Egypt, as well as a harvest celebration.

"It causes us to look at [anti-Semitism on campus] with seriousness," Summit said. "In general, Jewish people feel OK on campus, but, because we are a relatively small community, we are able to look at all of this in a microcosm. In our community we have a shot at addressing these issues. We have to recognize, educate, and [incite] reaction in the community -- people need to know where the limits are."

Summit said that Sukkahs at Tufts had been vandalized in the past, but said that it was the first time that both had been torn down.

Peer Educators also attempted to distinguish between Coming Out Day chalkings -- when members of the Tufts Transgender, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Collective (TTLGBC) wrote suggestive messages across campus in order to publicize the event -- and incidents where the word "gay" was used in graffiti.

According to sophomore and Peer Educator Sam Stiegler, the provocative chalkings were "a way to get the dialogue going."

Kraft explained that when a TTLGBC member designated a column at Ballou as "gay," it was different from an incident last year when someone wrote "This laundry machine is gay" on a broken machine in a residence hall.

"When someone from [the targeted community] labels, it's a form of empowerment," she said.

When Peer Educators asked the audience to evaluate the Bias Intervention Program, a couple of students spoke of instances in their classes where professors had demonstrated prejudice and suggested educating the community on bias in the classroom

According to Dean of Students Bruce Reitman, the Faculty Executive Committee voted this year in support of mandatory training on diversity issues. All faculty members must complete the training by the end of this semester.

"One of the goals will be to make people aware that some of the words they use innocuously can devastate," Reitman said.

At present, the diversity training only covers issues related to race and ethnicity, but Reitman said that he hopes that eventually the program will be expanded to address discrimination against other minorities.

Peer Educators are charged with combating discrimination as defined in the University's equal opportunity statement. The statement prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender, age, sexual orientation, religion, disability, race, genetics, color, and national or ethnic origin.

The Peer Educators added discrimination is not limited to certain groups: whites could be victims of racism, or males could be victims of sexism.