HIGHER EDUCATION:

Faculty wary of bias policy review

UNLV vice president who helped write the draft is named to head evaluation

Monday, May 4, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Download UNLV's policy on bias incidents and hate crimes

Chancellor wants UNLV bias policy rewritten (4-27-09)
ACLU airs free speech concerns on bias policy (4-25-09)

More Sun stories about education

UNLV administrators’ decision to review and possibly revamp a proposed hate crimes and bias policy has failed to quell faculty discontent over the document, which some professors fear will squelch free speech on campus.

The draft policy encourages people who believe they have run into bias to take actions that could include reporting incidents to a supervisor or the police, vice president of student affairs and vice president of diversity and inclusion.

Some faculty leaders say the administration ignored concerns about academic freedom in crafting the policy, which the university aims to adopt by July.

And now some question UNLV President David Ashley’s choice of Christine Clark, the vice president of diversity and inclusion who helped develop the draft policy, to head a task force that will evaluate the policy and weigh options including a potential revision.

“Faculty believe that she did not listen to their concerns regarding this policy and will not now as chair of the task force,” Bryan Spangelo, a faculty senator and former faculty senate chairman, wrote in an e-mail.

“In many instances faculty in the College of Sciences have voiced their opinion of the policy to Dr. Clark in forums, only to be ignored,” David Hatchett, another faculty senator, wrote in an e-mail.

“The concepts and methods proposed for evaluating and reporting hate crimes and bias are far (too) nebulous in the policy, providing a vehicle for abuse of academic freedom and First Amendment rights ... It is not acceptable to have Dr. Clark re-evaluate policy that she has crafted in light of the fact that alternative opinions regarding the improvement of the policy have been ignored,” Hatchett said.

Last month, Clark said a close reading makes it clear that the document is designed to encourage free speech, supporting people “in developing the skills and comfort to sustain dialogue on complex and controversial issues over time.”

Controversial statements that serve to promote intellectual inquiry do not constitute bias incidents under the proposed policy, and Clark said sections in the draft including those dealing with academic freedom and definitions of hate crimes and bias incidents included verbatim comments from faculty.

Clark said she is open to changes. Even before the public flare-up over the proposed policy, administrators integrated feedback from faculty members into the document during a vetting process that involved numerous discussions with faculty leaders.

“I honestly do not have an opinion on where we should end up,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I am looking forward to the process and seeing where it takes us.”

The document outlines “informal” and “formal” processes for handling bias, encouraging victims to use “informal options” first in cases where they do not feel threatened. These options include talking to alleged offenders about what has occurred. The formal process calls for reporting all bias incidents to Clark’s office and the offices of the vice president of student affairs.

The draft policy was labeled a “final” version, but Ashley called it a “work in progress” as criticism from stakeholders outside the university began to mount.

The ACLU of Nevada’s general counsel declared the document unconstitutional, saying the broad definition of bias incidents includes actions protected by the U.S. Constitution, such as making comments that denigrate somebody’s race or religion. The proposed policy gives the impression, he said, that someone who makes such remarks will be in trouble with the university or the law.

On Tuesday Ashley sent out a memo announcing the ad hoc policy task force — a day after the chancellor of Nevada’s public higher education system lambasted the draft in the media, saying, “somebody ought to start over and write it.”

The higher education system’s general counsel is now reviewing the hate crimes policies of all campuses, Chancellor Jim Rogers said.

The UNLV task force is charged with considering three options for the proposed policy: Keeping the policy as currently formulated, revising the draft to incorporate feedback from faculty and the ACLU of Nevada, or changing the draft so it addresses only hate crimes.

Besides Clark, the four-member group includes Vice President of Student Affairs Juanita Fain, Vice President and General Counsel Richard Linstrom, and the faculty senate vice chairwoman.

Despite the presence of a faculty leader on the task force, some faculty members are skeptical it will result in real changes, pointing out that the group’s mandate leaves open the possibility of adopting the policy in its current form.

“There’s a general consensus among people in the College of Sciences that this ad hoc committee is not representative of anything,” Hatchett said. “It’s representative of the administration again.”

Some faculty members say whatever the outcome, no policy should be adopted without the faculty senate’s approval.

Discussion: 5 comments so far…

By TalkingHead

5/4/09 at 8:54 a.m.

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Kudos to the Chancellor and the ACLU for killing Christine Clark's abomination. It's a good thing there are concerned constituencies in the community, because this university administration and its toadies do not listen to dissent. So-called "progressives" have little tolerance for the older notion of "liberal" dialogue in a market of ideas. The best cure for bad speech is more speech, not a board of censors. Make all of UNLV a free speech zone!
By CynicalObserver

5/4/09 at 9:07 a.m.

Suggest removal

Two questions:

Is Christine Clark a lawyer licensed by ANY state? Only a licensed lawyer should be in charge of reviewing Federal and state case law which has passed muster under the context of legally permissible prior restraints on free speech.

Is David Ashley an incompetent administrator? It seems to me that when you are paid several hundred thousand dollars per year, as the administrator of a large university, that you are supposed to have the intelligence to delegate matters on legal issues to the University system's in-house lawyers.

The next thing we know, Mr. Ashley will be delegating the drafting of Swine Flu mitigation policies to Ms. Clark, or to the University's City Planning Department.

It's time for the University to get rid of both of these dolts. My view: Those who are too stupid to obtain a professsional degree (doctor, dentist, lawyer, accountant, engineer, architect) become "educators". Ms. Clark, an "educator", certainly illustrates that principle, and I have my doubts about Mr. Ashley's professional credentials as well.
By Concerned_at_UNLV

5/4/09 at 12:30 p.m.

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I am confident that Vice President Clark would like UNLV to be a place where everyone can learn and grow free of intimidation, a goal that I and most everyone at UNLV shares. I believe the bias policy would undermine this goal, and only a hate crimes policy should be adopted. Most speech codes are not called speech codes and many say explicitly that they are not speech codes. This "bias incidents" policy is a de facto speech code. It is puzzling that those writing the policy did not do research on how such policies have fared around the country. When challenged, these policies have been universally struck down by the courts. No significant benefits have been generated by these policies, and no justification has been presented for such a policy at UNLV. No one has even explained why the mechanisms that exist at UNLV are inadequate to deal with "bias incidents." Research on university speech codes, however, reveals many cases of mild speech or politically incorrect research being censured (see Kors and Silvergate 1999; Downs 2005). Authors on the right and left have lamented the way higher education has been politicized. This code would politicize the environment at UNLV and undermine the free exchange of ideas.
By speakonlythetruth

5/4/09 at 5:31 p.m.

Suggest removal

Let us remember the REGENTS who were elected by the Las Vegas Community are the ones who insisted this policy be drafted. Perhaps next time you will pay attention to who you elect. The others are carrying out orders.
Secondly, perhaps legal is who wanted Ms Clark to chair....
and to the moron who questioned Dr. Ashley's credentials...perhaps you want to do a web search.
By Concerned_at_UNLV

5/4/09 at 7 p.m.

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To speakonlythetruth:

The regents clearly did not ask for a policy of this nature as the other higher educational institutions "carrying out orders" came up with very different, much less convoluted documents. From the news coverage, it sounds as though the regents asked only for a policy on hate crimes. Someone at UNLV, most likely Dr. Clark, must have decided to add the "bias incidents" element to the policy.

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