Breaking down Syracuse University’s bias reporting policy
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Editor’s note: this article contains mentions of anti-LGBTQ language.
On Friday, Feb. 24, Syracuse University’s Department of Public Safety received a report from a university employee of an anti-LGBTQ bias incident in Watson Hall.
Following the report, DPS did not immediately upload the incident to its bias reporting website because it determined a risk of jeopardizing its active investigation into a specific person of interest, according to a Thursday campus-wide email.
Sarah Scalese, SU’s senior associate vice president for university communications, said DPS took discretion to delay a disclosure of the bias incident to the campus community in the interest of identifying a perpetrator.
SU’s bias incident reporting policy – which was established as part of a list of student demands during #NotAgainSU – states that DPS will upload a report to the web page within 48 hours of its receipt, unless the public report could jeopardize an active investigation. DPS added the Feb. 24 report to the website on Thursday, six days after the incident was reported.
In a Tuesday email to Watson residents, Quincy Bufkin, SU’s assistant director for diversity, equity and inclusion in the Office of Student Living, disclosed the bias incident and notified students it would hold a group conversation on Wednesday night for students to communicate thoughts and concerns with members of the university’s Bias Response Team.
After Wednesday’s event – at which students expressed concerns of a lack of transparency from the university and accountability for perpetrators – SU officials sent a campus-wide email addressing the delay in communicating the report to the campus community.
DPS created the Bias Incident Reports page on its website in 2019. The page shows a total of 58 bias incidents since 2019. DPS has a separate website displaying a tracker of incident reports’ statuses and details.
The websites originated after #NotAgainSU, a 2019 sit-in protest following a series of racist, homophobic and antisemitic incidents on and around SU’s campus. Chancellor Kent Syverud eventually signed students’ demands to implement diversity training, protest handling and bias reporting.
One of the demands called for the university to respond to racially-motivated incidents within a maximum of 48 hours. This set the precedent for the university’s current protocol, where DPS posts reports of bias-related incidents on its website within a maximum of 48 hours of the report, unless the publishing would impede the investigation.
Scalese said of the 58 bias incidents that DPS has recorded since 2019, DPS communicated 49 to the campus community within the 48-hour limit. The spokesperson also said that in the 2022-2023 academic year, four out of seven reported bias incidents were shared within 48 hours. Only ten of the 58 incidents are marked as “closed.”
SU students have the option to report bias incidents via DPS or the STOP Bias and Hate website, which is an initiative in the Office of Community Standards. When students report through the STOP website, they can declare a preference on whether DPS should become involved.
Because bias incidents are not part of the federally-mandated on-campus crime reports under the Jeanne Clery Act, DPS has discretion in its communication of bias incidents under SU’s policy. The policy, which outlines the 48-hour standard, does not include criteria for delaying its communication of a bias report based on potential interference with an investigation past that threshold.
Unlike notifications disseminated under the Jeanne Clery Act, which the university communicates via a campus-wide email, students only receive direct communications for SU’s bias incident reports if they subscribe to a separate email list. DPS sends monthly campus-wide public safety update emails that include a list of bias incidents.
