As CU-Boulder's Office of Discrimination and Harassment initiates the process of training faculty and staff to identify, and prevent, workplace discrimination and harassment, the Office of Judicial Affairs will focus on cases involving students, and will face some issues unique to students in the process.
Jamal Ward, director of the Office of Judicial Affairs, said discrimination and harassment cases involving students are typically more likely to involve harassment than discrimination, particularly in racially motivated incidents. But unlike incidents in the workplace, the harassers in student cases often are anonymous and, therefore, cannot be held accountable.
"The Office of Discrimination and Harassment probably would see more cases of discrimination than we will," Ward said. "On the student side, harassment is the behavior that we're more likely to see, and a problem for our investigator is the fact that harassment or bias-motivated incidents involving students usually involve an anonymous perpetrator.
"We've all heard of bias-motivated cases on campus, but in almost every one of those cases no one knows who the perpetrators are, which makes it very difficult for us to process cases," he said. "In most of these cases, we have a complainant but no respondent, or perpetrator."
Even if the perpetrator is known, the cases are difficult to review, said Ward. "It becomes complicated for several reasons. One is that we have to take into account the First Amendment right to free speech and we have to scrutinize the behavior to determine the kinds of behavior that rise to the level of a policy violation," he explained.
Out of five bias-motivated cases that were reported in the media last spring, only one was brought to the Office of Judicial Affairs for review of ethnic intimidation under the Code of Conduct, Ward said. Review of harassment and discrimination cases involves 10 areas of discrimination identified as "protected class," including race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability, creed, religion, sexual orientation and veteran status.
Alternative ways of resolving conflicts can include using methods such as mediation, restorative justice and other less traditional programs.
Under the Code of Conduct, a student reported for harassment or discrimination in any of the protected class categories is referred to the Judicial Affairs Office, which conducts a review of the allegations and of the police report, when applicable.
If an investigation is not warranted, alternative resolution methods can be used. If an investigation is required, the parties meet with the investigator, who then decides whether charges are brought forth.
If a student is found to have violated the Code of Conduct, he or she could be sanctioned in a variety of ways. Depending on the seriousness of the violations, sanctions may range from being assigned to write a paper about the incident, giving a talk, attending a presentation and performing community service to more stringent sanctions including probation, suspension in abeyance, suspension and expulsion.
"We try to make certain that the facts of the situation warrant the sanction that we impose and that the sanctions educate the student at the same time," Ward said. "We want the students to be able to extract some educational principles from the process and to learn as much as possible through the variety of sanctions that we employ."
Numerous bias-motivated incidents were reported in campus residence halls last year, including incidents involving race or ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and others. Most of the incidents were verbal or written, including graffiti, and they targeted both individuals and groups.
While the new policy is implemented across campus, students are receiving more guidance on behavioral expectations through freshman orientation and other programs in an effort to prevent bias-motivated incidents from happening in the first place, Ward said.
For more information about the Judicial Affairs process go to the Web site at .