Responding to Bias at Columbia

The Engineering Student Council deplores the recent bias incidents that have occurred on our campus. While we promote and encourage free speech and open debate, we in no way condone or accept actions that are hateful or intolerant toward members of our community. We join our classmates and administration in their sentiments against these acts.

We applaud the Zero Tolerance Policy on Bias Acts that Dean Navratil has instituted in Mudd and the Schapiro Engineering Center. Under this policy, any bias incidents that include messages posted in public places will be removed immediately after Public Safety concludes its preliminary investigation and documentation procedures. This policy will ensure that hateful and offensive messages are not left up for extended periods of time. The homophobic graffiti that was posted on a pillar outside of Carman Hall last February and was not removed for more than a week is a striking example of why such a policy is important. We further believe that such a policy should be instituted University-wide.

Despite its merits, this policy alone will not be enough to ensure that the student body and the University community as a whole are kept aware of incidents of bias and hate on campus. We feel that our administration and Public Safety need to maintain a policy of open communication with the student body. The Public Safety (or equivalent) departments at our peer institutions in the Ivy League all publish daily crime logs that are freely available to members of their respective universities and in most cases to the public at large. We have published links to these crime logs, where available, on our Web site (www.cuengineering.com). We call upon Columbia’s Department of Public Safety to not only meet this basic standard, but also to make public all initial reports written for bias incidents and to continually update the student body through press releases on the status of ongoing investigations.

Additionally, we appreciate the administration’s recently increased efforts to inform the student body of bias incidents on campus in a timely fashion. President Bollinger denounced the most recent anti-Semitic graffiti posted in a bathroom in Lewisohn Hall within hours of its discovery. We believe that objective and complete information is most beneficial to students and that the administration is best suited to provide that communication. As such, we call upon the administration to institute a policy to ensure that incidents of bias on campus are reported to the entire student body as soon as possible and no later than 24 hours after their discovery.

We make these policy recommendations because we believe the student body deserves to be aware of what happens where we live, study, learn, and grow. Columbia is in a unique position to educate perpetrators of bias and intolerance. We believe the university setting is an environment for personal development, and while these acts are despicable and unacceptable, a zero-tolerance policy that results in unilateral expulsion of offenders is not always the best course of action. In a community as diverse as ours, opportunities to highlight the value in our differences and the breadth of our similarities are an indispensable resource in the fight against intolerance.

Elizabeth Strauss, a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences majoring in chemical engineering, is the president of the Engineering Student Council. Eash Cumarasamy, a senior in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences majoring in industrial engineering and operations research, is the president of the 2008 Class Council. Kim Manis, a junior in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences majoring in computer science, is the the vice president of student life on the Engineering Student Council.