By Lainey Porter
Recent incidents involving vandalism and racial slurs have created tension among students and faculty at SUNY Brockport.
Freshman Tatum Smyth lives in Gordon Hall, one of the two dorms the vandalism took place and was frustrated to hear about these incidents.
Gordon Hall: one of the two dorms vandalism took place | Photo credit: Lainey Porter
“They made me feel very uncomfortable and there was no reason for racialslurs to be written anywhere on this campus. I think Brockport has beenhandling this situation well and I hope incidents like this do not happenagain,” said Smyth.
There has been a total of fifteen Bias Incident Reports during the fall 2022semester at Brockport. Chief Diversity Officer Damita Davis has been working diligently to resolve the most recent incidents that took place in Gordon and Bramley Hall.
“In both Bramley and Gordon Hall, there were two points of vandalism. Onebulletin board had the N-word fully spelled out and in the other incidences itwas the first three letters of the N-word that were written in Gordon; one on abulletin board and the second was on student doors,” Davis said.
These were reported through the Bias Incident Report system. This is asystem in place for students, staff and faculty to report non-emergencyincidents in an effort to cultivate a better and more inclusive campus.
“When we have a bias incident that’s reported it comes to me and the fiveother members of the bias response team,” said Davis. “They serve in differentfunctional areas across the university. The person or people named in thereport and the location of where the report is will determine who investigatesthat particular incident. In the case of the vandalism in the two residencehalls that will be investigated by folks in student affairs.”
The Director of Housing will likely be involved ensuring things are beingfollowed up upon, as well as the Resident Director who will check in withstudents to gather any additional information regarding the incidents.
“The results of that investigation will determine touching base with anypotential witnesses,” Davis said. If someone is named in the report, we willfollow up with them. The investigator reports back to the bias response team interms of the investigations’ outcome. If a faculty or staff member is named ina report in the investigation (that most likely is done by HR) will be donewithin the guides of whatever union that employee or faculty member belongsto.”
Brockport sent out an email on Monday, Oct. 24 notifying students of twoincidents that occurred over the weekend in Bramley Hall. A similar email went outon Saturday, Nov. 5 the day after two more incidents took place in Gordon. Bothemails made it very clear they are being looked into and that this behavior isfrowned upon.
As of right now, the college does not know of everyone who is involved. Thereare no cameras on the residence floor halls making it difficult to identify andhold accountable.
“A lot of questions we get are, ‘why can’t we know the outcome of a case?’or ‘why can’t we know what cases are coming in and who’s involved?’ Well, thereare privacy laws that we have to adhere to. What we did in an effort to betransparent is create a dashboard that is on the website. It’s live and thedashboard lets you know when a report came in, the date an incident happened,what form of bias was reported, the form of incident that was reported, etc. andwe don’t get too specific,” said Davis.
Sophomore Milo Scheve lives in Bramley Hall and appreciates the factBrockport has tools like this and the Bias Report System.
“I feel like they are useful tools for students to use. We have aguaranteed outlet to make campus a better place for us and the community,” saidScheve.
Davis notes although incidents like this remain an issue, the use of theBias Report System is a step in the right direction. Students on campusutilizing these systems means people are aware of what the process is and that they want to hold people accountable when things like this happen.
“Do we want tons of reports? No. However, the more we get, the more we knowwhat we need to address in a timely manner,” said Davis. “If we can see trendsand patterns, then we can address those systematically. Part of my role is to convene the team. I review the cases to see if there are patterns and if there arepatterns, what do we need to do to address that? So that is helpful informationto us.”
The display of racism and hate speech has become part of a common trendacross the country in higher education.
“Unfortunately, this type of behavior will probably continue because people do not grasp the ramifications of vandalizing, particularly with racial slurs, or other discriminatory language and how that impacts the community,” said Davis. “When we can’t hold those responsible accountable the way we want to, we’re sending out a message saying, this is what’s going on to the community. It may appear that we’re not taking things seriously and for some, we give them the sense that they’re not going to get found out, so they just continue doing this behavior, but they do have serious ramifications.”
Damaging state property is criminal but Davis believes they also “damage the desire and our want to foster community amongst faculty, staff and students.”
Davis hopes to see less of this behavior and for people to understand the reparations.
“People think that it’s just graffiti and it doesn’t really matter, or it doesn’t hurt anybody; well, no, it does,” Davis said. “It hurts the community in multiple ways. And so, unfortunately, I would not be surprised if we get more reported incidents. I hope we’re able to identify those who are responsible for the vandalism and hold them to account for their behavior and the damage that that causes.”
The Bias Incident Report is a step in the right direction in creating a better campus, but Brockport will have to work hard as an institution to cultivate a culture shift where all students, faculty and staff hold one another accountable and educate each other; because words have consequences.