Duke University Ponders Tougher Penalties for ‘Bias and Hate’ Offenses

Duke University Ponders Tougher Penalties for ‘Bias and Hate’ Offenses

Who do you think determines what qualifies as “bias and hate’ offenses? Would you feel comfortable being judged on such things by college campus standards?

Campus Reform reports:

Duke explores stiffer penalties for ‘bias and hate’ offenses

Duke University has formed a committee to advise another committee that is working to implement recommendations issued by still another committee for addressing “bias and hate issues.”

According to The Duke Chronicle, the “Task Force on Bias and Hate” spent about six months reviewing bias and hate issues on campus, dividing its 29-member team of faculty, administrators, alumni, and students into six working groups, each of which contributed its findings for a final report that was issued in May.

For instance, the task force conducted a survey based on the Everyday Discrimination Scale, which attempts to measure the level of discrimination students experience on campus based on perceptions such as whether “people act as if they are afraid of you” or “you are threatened or harassed,” along with the frequency of such episodes.

The school also polled senior students on their undergraduate experiences, asking them to rate their degree of satisfaction with how “secure” they feel on campus.

The report concedes that the surveys revealed “an overall decline in the levels of student dissatisfaction between 2003 and 2014,” but frets that “significant disparities persist” in the form of high levels of dissatisfaction among minorities, females, and LGBT students, even though dissatisfaction declined precipitously in each of those categories between 2003 and 2014.

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