Grad students report most bias incidents

Only 35% of those filing complaints were undergrads

Graduate students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison filed nearly 7 of every 10 incident reports last spring saying they were targeted by discriminatory language or actions, the university reported.

A plurality of reporters (44%) to the university’s bias incident reporting team said they were white, and the second-largest category (22%) said they were from Asia. Only 35% of those filing bias and hate incident reports were undergraduates.

“We clearly have challenges with regard to campus climate that are important for us to address,” said Kevin Helmkamp, assistant vice provost and associate dean of students.

Of the 92 bias-related reports for 74 bias-related incidents, most were through social media. The second largest category was verbal, non-threatening language, epithets, slurs or speech, which most often are protected under the First Amendment.

“A lot of types of incidents we see are subtle or slight remarks or putdowns toward a marginalized group or community,” said Satya Chima, the university’s new Bias Response and Advocacy Coordinator in the dean of students office.

One takeaway, she said, is that in such a large institution, 74 incident reports is “quite a small number.” Overall, she said, bias is underreported.

The 2017 spring semester report does not provide any details of incidents, or reveal the severity or nature of the incidents, which officials said was intentional to protect confidentiality.

Only 11% of incidents involved political affiliation.

In one case, a student found responsible for a student conduct violation tore down a political poster from another student’s residence hall room door.

“We’re not able to disclose the specific sanction in this case but we can say that generally, a vandalism case of this type would result in an educational sanction (such as taking an ethical decision-making class, writing a reflection paper or writing an apology) and a written warning that further conduct violations could lead to more severe sanctions,” UW Spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said in a statement.

When cases involved faculty or staff, the Bias Response and Advocacy Coordinator worked with Human Resources and the Office of Compliance to address it. The university encourages students to report incidents of bias or hate involving other students, faculty or staff, so that officials may respond to the incidents and support those who feel targeted.

“A lot of education and training is, ‘Here’s what a micro-aggression is and here’s how we define bias incidents,’ ” Chima said. “Our job is not necessarily to do the preventive work of stopping all forms of oppression students face, but we want them to know this is a resource.”

The reporting system is intended to inform educational conversations, and some incidents may lead to conduct sanctions and criminal charges, if warranted, according to the university.

A bias incident is defined as single or multiple acts toward an individual, group, or their property that have a negative impact and that one could reasonably conclude are based on actual or perceived age, race, color, creed, religion, gender identify or expression, ethnicity, national origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, marital status, spirituality, cultural, socio-economic status or combination of factors.

“We clearly have challenges with regard to campus climate.” Kevin Helmkamp UW-Madison assistant vice provost and associate dean of students