By Brenda Wintrode
Since the beginning of the semester, eight hate-bias reports have been filed by students and faculty, according to a year-old reporting tool the university instituted to provide more transparency on the issue to the campus community, four of which were entered in the first two days.
Although the Hate-Bias Reporting Log administered by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion does not prevent hate-bias incidents, it does allow victims of hate-bias events to report them to people who are trained to help. In addition, the online report provides a window into what steps the school takes to address them.
Neijma Celestine-Donnor, director of hate-bias response and advocacy, heads the response effort and reviews the reports whether they come in through the system or through another campus organization, such as University of Maryland Police Department. She said her main concern is to care for the people affected by a hate-bias event.
“They have to be front and center,” said Celestine-Donnor, a licensed clinical social worker experienced in helping traumatized people.
Her work can start regardless of an investigation’s status and whether or not the perpetrator has been caught, she said.
“I felt like there was a lot of time and energy being spent on how do we be punitive to this particular person, but we’re not necessarily spending much time focused in on how we can support those who’ve been impacted, so that’s where there’s a gap that I hope that I’m filling,” said Celestine-Donnor.
“Punishment doesn’t equal healing,” she said.
All eight reports this semester cited offensive language – either written, spoken or online. Other issues were also listed, such as harassment, intimidation, property damage or “verbal attack/assault.”
One case alleges “racially offensive words targeting Latinx” individuals. Another report recalls that a parent on move-in day “made an offensive statement, which included references to gangs and thugs” to three black residential staff members. The next was a racial slur “carved into the wall of a bathroom stall in a residence hall.”
Those filling out the form self-select the description of what happened to them. Celestine-Donnor said this is done in an effort to give agency to those submitting reports. Report filers will receive notification of receipt and review within 48 hours, according to HBRP protocol.
Celestine-Donnor leads a group of departments that are members of the Hate-Bias Response Team. The team includes the Counseling Center, the Office of Civil Rights and Sexual Misconduct, ODI, the Department of Residence Life, UMPD, University Health Center and Strategic Communications.
“I think on a campus this large we really need to be working together and collaborating,” Celestine-Donnor said. “This is not the job for one office or one person. I think it’s a shared responsibility that we all have some piece to do… Whether it’s calling out behavior, whether it’s allyship,” Celestine-Donnor said, who also noted she can spend 70 hours on just one report.
Having been made retroactive to January 2018, the report’s 66 cases can be viewed with a university login, along with their UMPD status and some of the steps the response team has taken to assist the affected people.
Types of response statuses include: “Resident Life provided resources for report,” “Report taken by UMPD,” or “Hate-Bias Response Program (HBRP) acknowledged the report and shared resources.”
A hate-bias event can cause division in a community, and Celestine-Donnor said she sees her team’s function as aiding an individual to return to their daily life.
Celestine-Donnor started in April 2018 as the program’s manager, a position created by the ODI. Along with her team, she is called to “provide support to individuals affected by hate/bias incidents and to formulate action plans for responding to the incident,” according to “Inclusion and Respect at the University of Maryland,” a Senate bill drafted by a task force and approved by President Wallace Loh in May of 2018.
The task force, called The Joint President/Senate Inclusion & Respect Task Force, was convened at the request of President Wallace Loh and the Senate Executive Committee after the May 2017 fatal stabbing of black Bowie State University senior Lt. Richard Collins III by a white University of Maryland student with social media connections to white supremacy groups.
The white student, Sean Urbanski, was charged with a “hate crime – resulting in death” in addition to a first degree murder charge, according to Maryland judiciary case search.
A few weeks prior to the 2017 murder, a noose was found in a campus fraternity house, and in March of 2017, racist flyers were posted inside several campus buildings.
Celestine-Donnor said she believes the motivations behind hate-bias incidents are multifaceted.
“I think that some people don’t know how to exist in difference,” Celestine-Donnor said. “We must understand how power works, and that some people don’t want people who are marginalized to have power… We have to think about the way white supremacy works. I think we have to think about all these different ‘isms,’ and the way people have been socialized.”
The task force looked into how other institutions were creating policy around hate crimes. They later reported to Loh and the Senate that “Beginning in the 1990s, more than 350 colleges and universities adopted rules or codes restricting hate speech. To date, every court to consider a campus speech code has declared it unconstitutional.”
Free speech is protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, even hate-filled speech, unless the speech meets the legal definition of inciting “imminent lawless action,” libel or “fighting words,” according to the Senate bill.
Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs Warren Kelley, one of three co-chairs on the task force, said the team aimed to help the campus better define what is not allowed, decide what actions the university can take and be as transparent as possible.
Kelley said one of the group’s objectives was to try to define the gray area between free speech and conduct.
“There’s a point where expression becomes threatening and intimidating behavior,” Kelley said. “Between free speech and actual hate crimes, there’s a line. We’re going to try to define the line.”
In the same bill, the task force introduced a new policy prohibiting “threatening or intimidating acts motivated in whole or in part because of an individual or group’s actual or perceived protected status.”
Prior to the HBRP, Kelley said, the police were the sole determiners of the outcome for all parties involved in hate-bias incidents.
“By adding the HBRP, we added a significant dimension of latitude beyond what police can do,” Kelley said.
The HBRP plans to hold more events like last Thursday’s “Racist Notions: Racist Imagery & Stereotypes in U.S. Popular Media.” Celestine-Donnor said these events not only intend to educate but also facilitate bringing the community together , something she considers a proactive measure against hate-bias.
“I feel like there needs to be some intentionality behind building community,” Celestine-Donnor said. “I think there are pockets on this campus that have some community. I don’t know what community looks like on a larger scale for this campus.”
Junior Anita Misago, now in her third semester at the University of Maryland, said she has experienced this first hand.
“I feel like, depending on who you are and what avenue you’re in, community can come very differently,” Misago said. “So it’s not accessible to everybody in the same way.”
Misago, a government and politics and women’s studies double major, said she had not yet heard of the response program, but thought it was smart.
“I feel like there should be a better way to market it so people know (how) to go about it,” said Misago.
Campus offices and departments can request on-site hate-bias prevention and response training, or “Stop the Hate” training, through the HBRP section of the ODI website.
Students and faculty can submit a hate-bias report online through the ODI website or they can call UMPD at (301) 405-3555. The OCRSM also has an online form.
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