Campus Bias Update

Two different kinds of bias on campus have been in the news this past week:

Personal bias incidents may be on the rise on the UIUC campus. From the Daily Illini last week:

University offers bias report resource
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According to BART’s annual report, there were 61 reports of bias from 2015 to 2016. There were 116 reports from 2016 to 2017. From 2017 to 2018, 128 reports were recorded.

Bias is defined as “inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair,” according to the Oxford Dictionary.

According to BART, bias-motivated incidents that are reported to the team are “actions or expressions that are motivated, at least in part, by prejudice against or hostility toward a person (or group).” These discriminatory expressions can include age, disability, ethnicity and gender. Additionally, BART focuses on the protected categories listed in the University’s non-discrimination policy.

BART reports are handled by their team and are submitted by students. Students are then immediately contacted by the team, and the co-chair to gather information. This team collects statistics about bias incidents that are taking place and gives everyone in the University community a resource if they are experiencing acts of bias.

Most of the cases do not rise to the level of a policy violation.  The members of the team work to be a resource both to the person making the report and to anyone who is reported.

Full article here.

Accusations of political bias have devolved into increasing digital and real world conflicts on campus. The rise of various far-right groups targeting professors for online harassment by hate groups and others has led to real life confrontations in the classroom as well. From the News-Gazette Sunday:

UI ponders policies to protect faculty from classroom trolling
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A resolution he drafted last fall, allowing a department to bar students with a history of trolling or harassing a professor from enrolling in that instructor's class, has been replaced with a more general version that will be considered Monday by the Senate Executive Committee, highlighting other remedies already in place. The committee will decide whether to place it on the agenda for the Feb. 4 senate meeting...

A report by the Chronicle of Higher Education last year quoted women's studies professors who now record their classes to defend against students who might accuse them of bias, and some have requested that plainclothes police officers sit in on classes when discussions become too heated or personal.

Other professors have reported a similar issue with classes on climate change, said Hans-Jeorg Tiede, associate secretary for tenure, academic freedom and governance at the American Association of University Professors. The association has condemned efforts to intimidate professors and urged universities to take steps to help faculty targeted by online attacks, such as prohibiting surreptitious recording of classes.

The UI drafted new guidelines last fall for faculty members who are targeted, harassed or threatened because of their research or public views. That followed a 2017 case involving a mathematics curriculum and instruction professor who said she was attacked by right-wing groups because of a passage she wrote for a professional training book discussing the political implications of teaching math and its bias toward white contributions.

Rosenstein said those guidelines and UI policies don't cover a case where someone who has harassed or disparaged a faculty member over a longer period of time suddenly appears in that professor's classroom.

Much more at the full article here.