Racism and discrimination on college campuses has become a known issue in the world. There is not a campus today that can claim that they have never encountered an issue that involved some kind of racism or discrimination. Incidents are taking forms in many ways and are being expressed in a multitude of ways. Whether it be expressed through posters, hate crimes, images, or even notes left on dorm room doors, it is still happening. Addressing Racial Trauma and Hate Crimes on College Campuses, is an article that address how racism and discrimination has been on the rise over the years. The article goes on to define what a hate crime is and causes it, before sharing some statistical data with the reader followed by graph to outline what is being read.
The article goes on to talk about how colleges are becoming unsafe for students due to campus bias. Campus bias being any behavior that consists of discrimination, stereotypes, any form of exclusion, harassment or anything that causes harm upon another due to their identity. These factors have been on the rise and has caused an increase of incidents in college campuses. From 2016-2018, the Anti-Defamation League documented at least 346 incidents of white supremacist propaganda on college campuses. Since 2018, Southern Poverty Law Center documented 434 incidents of white supremacist fliers on college campuses. Which makes it hard for students of color to be on college campuses. And that does not mentioning students in the LGBTQ+ community who face ridicule because of the way they identify. More than a third of undergraduate students who identify as LGBT face harassment or discrimination and sexual orientation bias represent the third category of reported crimes. Along with the rise of this issue, according to the article students are not able to report the issue without remaining anonymous. Not all colleges possess the technology or tools that allow students to anonymously report incidents that occur. The article talks about how 1 in 5 state flagship universities does not have an online bias reporting mechanism. So at least 216,000 students are currently being denied the option to report any experiences they have which can be traumatic or not, online with a guarantee of anonymity. It is pointed out that while campuses are doing their best, the limited resources that they have and can provide are proving to be not enough. Campuses are unable to properly help their students because of a number of factors. The main one being a lack of staff to accommodate the large number of students. This is a problem because not all students are able to seen when they need to and this can cause a lack of interest in the students to want to go seek help. Also some schools have a lack of funding to accommodate this or just choose to prioritize other things to than that department. Students are becoming more afraid to choose a school because of the race they identify as, the religion they follow, or what part of the LGBTQ+ community they identify with.
Citations:
Nelson, Victoria. “Addressing Racial Trauma and Hate Crimes on College Campuses.” Center for American Progress, 9 Aug. 2019, www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2019/08/09/473299/addressing-racial-trauma-hate-crimes-college-campuses/.