Whitman College is committed to creating a safe campus for all our community members, and Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion John Johnson oversees our process for reporting, investigating and addressing bias in all its expressions. Bias incidents are acts or behaviors motivated by the offender's bias against the age, ancestry, color, disability, gender identity or expression, genetic information, military status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation or veteran status of another. A bias incident may not necessarily rise to the level of a crime, a grievance or a violation of campus policy, though it may still contribute to creating an unsafe, negative or unwelcome community environment.
Over the course of the Fall 2021 semester, a total of six bias incidents have been reported through the bias response system and in the spirit of transparency we want to provide you with some basic information on these incidents.
Two of the reported incidents involved vandalism and/or defacing of campus property. In one case, a gender-based slur was written on a faculty member’s door. In another case, an antisemitic symbol was etched into a bathroom panel. In both cases the assailant was unknown and not identifiable. In both cases, there was no evidence that a specific person was targeted by these actions. The vandalized items have been removed and/or repaired and these incidents have been resolved.
Two of the reported incidents involved interpersonal conflict between members of the campus community. Both cases involved presumption of identity-based bias, but did not provide evidence of identity-based bias. In these cases, the matters were referred to the appropriate parties for resolution.
Two other bias incident reports are currently under review and therefore we cannot provide any details about them at this time.
We will continue to share information about bias incident reporting periodically. It's important that our community understands how bias incidents are reported and resolved, and you can learn more about this process on the Bias Reporting and Response page of our website.
