Dozens of bias incidents reported at OU over two-year period
During a two-year period at the University of Oklahoma, dozens of complaints over alleged biased or prejudiced behavior were reported, but details about the incidents remain unclear.
Through a phone hotline and webpage ,50 alleged incidents were reported f rom Sept. 1, 2016, to Aug. 30, 2018, according to information provided to The Oklahoman.
The reports were funneled through OU' s Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Office, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and the Title IX Office, which handles claims involving sexual misconduct, discrimination and harassment policy, and gender equity issues related to athletics.
Of the 50 complaints, 35 resulted in “no action taken .” Five incidents reached an “administrative resolution.” Three ended in“training ,” and two were noted as having an “investigation commenced.”
It is unclear from the reports how five of the incidents were handled.
On Oct. 31, 2018, The Oklahoman requested copies of bias reports to the university' s 24- hour reporting hotline and Ethics Point webpage, as well as copies of responses and resolutions.
The Public Affairs Office responded the following day, saying the request was forwarded to the Office of Open Records.
Nearly 20 months later, on June 26, the Office of Open Records emailed The Oklahoman and said it cannot fulfill the request because any information responsive to the request would be confidential under t he Oklahoma Open Records Act, which protects rights exercised under the Oklahoma Constitution and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.
“However, in the interest to promote transparency, the university has attached the initial reporting relating complaints and other referrals,” the office said.
The initial reporting document redacted synopsis notes of the bias incidents.
The Oklahoman again requested information related to those incidents, to be fulfilled by July 6.
In response, O Us pokeswoman Kesha Keith said the Office of Open Records has three employees fulfilling more than 1,600 requests each year. A single request can take more than 35 hours to compile, redact and review.
Comprehensive reports from the bias hotline are sent to and logged by various departments, and the request for specific accounts of bias allegations could not be fulfilled by July 6, Keith told The Oklahoman.
On July 26, Keith told The Oklahoman the university was collecting reports that went to the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Title IX reports are confidential, she said. Keith said the university was reviewing the reports and there would need to be partial red actions before they are released.
The Oklahoman asked an open records expert f or comment.
“OU isn't refusing to provide the reports,” Oklahoma State University journalism professor Joey Senat said. “It just didn't provide them in the first place and now says it will take some long but undefined amount of time. Access delayed is access denied. The open records office has three employees because that's how many the university administration wants to have.”
Strategic plans
O Uh as endured several racial controversies in recent years.
In 2015, the OU Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity made national news for a racist chant. The fraternity chapter was shut down and two members leading the chant left the university.
In 2019, two more students left the university after wearing blackface in a video and using the N-word. Later that year, a student posted a photo wearing a mud mask and appearing to mock campus blackface incidents.
Earlier this year, students protested two faculty members' use of the N-word in class.
One professor used the word during a lecture, while equating the generation al term “boomer” to the racial slur's offensive nature. The other professor used the slur while reading from a 1920s U.S. Senate document.
OU President Joseph Harroz Jr., who took the post in May, has said diversity, equity and inclusion is his top priority.
Through the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and OU Outreach, the university in October finalized a 500- page action plan to review diversity issues, coordinate diversity programs across the university and manage diversity planning.
A host of programs include requiring freshmen to complete three hours of training on diversity education through the freshman diversity experience; bias training for students, faculty, staff and administrators; and supporting employee resource groups that provide what the university calls “a safer space for historically underrepresented faculty and staff groups across campus.”
Faculty, staff and graduate students across al lOU campuses will be expected to participate in a new diversity certification series.
The university is setting “target numbers” for faculty, staff and administration representation.
The campus Bias Response Committee assists people on campus who say they have experienced or witnessed an incident based on hate or bias.
In addition to other reporting systems on campus, the 24-hotline is available for the OU community to report such incidents, and other campus concerns.
“We're always aiming for
creating an inclusive space and a system of belonging, so tools like this are able to create a space for a civil discourse and civil dialogue about things that might come across as harmful,” said Monique Ramirez, who oversees student diversity initiatives at OU.
Chilling effect
Campus free speech advocates say bias reporting hotline sand investigations intimidate students and professors, and squelch open dialogue at colleges and universities.
“Our chief concern is the chilling effect these policies have on speech,” said Laura Beltz, senior program officer for policy reform at Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “Oftentimes we are told they are only put in place to protect students, but they are often written so vaguely that after reports are made, students have to assume they are being investigated or punished.”
In 2016, FIRE surveyed 231 bias response teams at public and private institutions serving 2.84 million American students. Many of the schools publish incidents of alleged bias for the public to view online.
The bias response teams fielded numerous reports of conduct not protected by the First Amendment, including vandalism, assault and threats.
However, schools cast broad definitions of “bias” so that many students reported each other for speech that is protected, according to FIRE.
At Appalachian State University, a student filed a report claiming to be “offended by the politically biased slander that is chalked up everywhere reading `Trump is a racist.'”
Another campus report said it was “hate speech” to support Trump.
At John Carroll University in Ohio, a student reported that a Black student protest was making white students feel uncomfortable.
At Colby College in Maine, one student was reported for claiming that a student group was racist against white people.
Another student on campus was reported for saying “on the other hand,” which was characterized as “ableist.”
“When you start hearing about the things reported under these policies, it shows how ridiculous the policies can be in practice,” Beltz said. “When you get these records back and you see statements like students being compared to saltines and mayonnaise, once you get all of that in front of you, you see how ridiculous these policies can be. It's presented like a panacea. In practice, that's not how this plays out.”
Ramirez, who oversees OU diversity initiatives, said the university recognizes free speech tenets, but it would be untrue to say “we are always free from the consequences.”
“We' re really here to provide access to have a dialogue,” she said. “Our aim is not to infringe on someone's First Amendment rights. If someone does something that's a policy violation, that wouldn't come to us anyway.”
Campus speech law in Oklahoma
On April 2 9, 2 019, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed into law Senate Bill 361, which prohibits what have been labelled “free-speech zones” on campus.
Critics have said the designated areas, in practice, are sequestered spots that send the wrong message about the free exchange of ideas.
The law requires each college and university to post on their websites and submit to the governor and Legislature by Dec. 31 each year a compliance report that includes:
“A description of any barriers to or incidents of disruption of free expression occurring on campus, including but not limited to attempts to block or prohibit speakers, and investigations into students or student organizations for their speech.”
Without revealing the students' names, the description must include the nature of each “barrier or incident,” as well as what disciplinary action, if any, was taken against members of the campus community determined to be responsible for those specific barriers or incidents involving students.
“It puts into statute that they have to report these things ,” Senat said .“They have to tell the public what their First Amendment rights are, and report any incidents to the governor and Legislature. If the bias is maybe some discriminatory action by faculty or staff, not speech, t hose things probably wouldn't have to show up in the report. But if they are investigating students for bias, that should be in there.”
Student spies?
FIRE works with universities to craft policies that fall under the First Amendment.
Beltz pointed to George Mason University as an example of a school that defines bias narrow ly and explains to students that some bias-motivated acts may be constitutionally protected.
Bias report teams and recording processes vary from campus to campus, Beltz said. Teams may include campus police, which might intimidate students into keeping quiet about their views.
Some universities take information which is then filed in a“campus climate report,” but students are not investigated.
In other instances, students are investigated for their speech.
“They are being brought in for a meeting with administrators,” Beltz said. “That's going to have a chilling effect no matter what. After you undergo that, you don't want it to happen again. That's really intimidating for students.”
FIRE has also seen alleged bias incidents on campuses boiling over into the community, which results in nonstudents and nonfaculty making demands of university administrations.
“If the administration faces a public outcry, they are going to be a lot more motivated to do something,” Beltz said. “It's particularly so when you see a lot of these policies enlisted in places where a student's speech might be investigated by the police. They will think twice before saying something controversial. There is a surveillance aspect to asking students to spy on each other.”