Our University is no stranger to board-driven ousters. In 2012, University President Teresa Sullivan was unexpectedly fired from her position, and, in response to widespread protests, the Board of Visitors ultimately reinstated her. We write today to urge the governing board at Ole Miss to do the same.
A vote on tuition changes requires significant consideration; for all Board members not to feel fully prepared for such a vote is troubling. Even Meg Gould, the non-voting student representative to the Board, pointed to the lack of transparency in the Board’s decision as a reason “students feel that they weren’t given sufficient time to understand the policy and [felt] unheard or unrepresented.”
As March comes to an end, the Managing Board recounts some notable numbers.
If the Board truly only has 30 minutes to spare for the topic of diversity and inclusion, those 30 minutes should be much more substantive than they were Tuesday. The concerns we mentioned — among many others — are not new. Why is it that such concerns are not being addressed by the very committee that exists to address them?
Yesterday, we wrote about the standardization of elements of Title IX — in particular, standardizing who should oversee investigations and standardizing whether parties should have a right to have counsel or advisers present. In our opinion, the national standardization of these two practices could improve the adjudication of sexual misconduct at colleges and universities, as well as make it easier to compare schools’ respective adjudicative practices.
A key issue with Title IX requirements is that they leave many decisions up to schools that should, in fact, be standardized. The need for standardization does not apply to all regulations within Title IX — but it definitely applies to regulations regarding due process. This need seems especially important given the existence of so many misunderstandings regarding sexual assault: according to FiveThirtyEight, despite acknowledging the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses nationwide, only 6 percent of U.S. college presidents believe sexual assault is a problem on their own campuses.
To lobby for particular changes over a long period of time and see minimal results shapes the context in which Martese’s arrest occurred. For students who have become accustomed to seeing their needs sidelined, a lack of community response to the brutality Martese experienced may not be surprising. And this is something we need to change.
On social media platforms such as Yik Yak, students have posted comments blaming Martese for the arrest, saying his wounds were insignificant and even accusing Martese of enjoying a publicity stunt. These and countless other anonymous posts affirm that race is still a serious problem at U.Va.
Whatever details may surface, a member of our community was hurt, and we have witnessed his pain in the harrowing images that have emerged from that event. He was hurt in a space where he is supposed to feel safe — a space he is supposed to call home. And that is where we should focus our conversation — right here, at home.
The ensuing outrage against the six students who voted to remove the flag was misplaced for two reasons. First, as we at the University can attest to, the exercise of student self-governance is essential to the operation of a school, and UC Irvine’s student government clearly operates to some extent under a system of checks and balances. While an initial group of students voted on this policy, another group was able to veto it — similar to many functioning political systems.
At Rochester, the need to locate students stemmed from racially motivated threats. As we wrote yesterday, racism — and other isms — is perpetuated by the existence of environments of inactive bystanders. Anonymous social media platforms demonstrate an area of student interaction where offensive posts are ubiquitous and users have no accountability.
Since our University is no stranger to this type of racial scandal, these issues are just as relevant for us. At a party jointly thrown by the University chapters of Kappa Alpha and Zeta Psi in 2002, some guests came wearing blackface. We can readily point to the party-goers wearing blackface as racist in their actions — but why not also consider the fact that these two fraternities, by ostensibly failing to criticize these guests and failing to kick them out, contributed to an environment in which racist behavior was acceptable?
Ahead of spring break, the Managing Board recounts some notable numbers from the start of the semester.
Students may be quick to criticize the Lawn selection system for the disproportionate representation of particular groups, or stigmas surrounding particular extracurriculars, or even the diversity of the applicant pool itself. But the homogeneity of Lawn residents, though impacted by many factors, is due to what we have made the space of the Lawn — an accolade for high-achieving students, a reward by which we can (imperfectly) measure individuals’ achievements, and not necessarily a space where our whole community can gather.
The police as a whole have not yet demonstrated the ability to sensitively interact with sexual assault survivors. This does not mean police cannot be trained to respond carefully to survivors’ needs when questioning them or moving forward with investigations — but until the police are thoroughly trained, survivors should not be subjected to the consequences of mandatory reporting laws.
Perhaps not every confession can be recorded, but the argument that this means police should not record interrogations is unpersuasive. If police are excessively forceful or brutal in their interrogation tactics, but no recording exists, a defendant’s claim that his confession was coerced or that he was subject to police brutality can’t be substantiated. In such a he-said, she-said scenario, a police officer — even if he did in fact coerce a confession — will appear much more believable than a potential criminal.
If collection agencies knowingly concealed payment options that could lighten students’ burden of debt, the Department of Education is right in its decision to cut ties with those agencies. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Justice should immediately begin investigating whether those agencies violated existing federal debt collection laws — a strong possibility.
Undeniably, the ideals that fall under the umbrella of the community of trust extend far beyond lying, cheating and stealing, and Honor may have a place in conversations outside that punitive domain. But the time for Honor to take on that role has not yet come.
Here in Charlottesville, homelessness is an obvious problem — a simple walk on the Corner demonstrates that. But in a city where the Downtown Mall serves as one of few pedestrian areas where people are likely to gather (as opposed to driving through in a car), banning panhandling on the Mall is effectively a preliminary step to banning panhandling altogether.
It is obvious the problem of workplace discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community persists. With no current national law in place to mitigate this discrimination — the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2013 died in Congress — addressing this issue is left to the states. SB 785 would address this problem, solidifying in law the state’s stance on issues of discrimination.
