During a Student Government meeting on Wednesday, March 23, SG unanimously passed proposal 6R30 entitled “Document of Recommendations Regarding Reporting Racial Profiling at Wheaton,” in response to The Record’s coverage of alleged racial profiling in the city of Wheaton. This included provisions for improving channels for reporting microaggressions and instituting rights training for international students.
The proposal has six parts. These include: creating a 24-hour public safety feedback line which will allow public safety to improve their effectiveness, improving diversity training for student leaders, training international students on their rights, updating the diversity website tab on Wheaton’s website, instituting a no retaliation policy so students and faculty can report microaggression without fear and making it easier to report micro-aggression via Banner Web. “As a whole,” Fort says, “Our hope is to create structures and systems that will lower the barrier to entry for students who desire to report concerns about possible incidents of racial profiling on and off campus.”
Junior Sarah Modolo, a member of the Racial Profiling Ad Hoc Committee, explains that “this is how racial reconciliation works.”
Modolo believes that the information that will be gathered when the new systems are put in place will be invaluable to Wheaton in the future. She explains that the committee hopes that by providing students with easier ways to report racial profiling and other microaggressions, Wheaton’s campus will become a safer, more caring community.
Sophomore Tramaine Kaleebu, EVP of Community Diversity and Senior Josh Fort, student body president, formed the Racial Profiling Ad Hoc Committee after Sept. 24, 2015, when the Record published an article detailing the racial profiling experiences of two Wheaton students.
The Wheaton Police Department responded by improving the channels through which students can report incidents of microaggression. Instead of reporting such incidents via a physical form at the police station, students can fill out an online form. Police will also hold interviews on campus rather than at the police station and allow students to bring a neutral third party to those interviews.
Despite these improvements, Fort and Kaleebu recognized the need to provide students with easier access to channels through which to report microaggression as well as stronger protection against it. Therefore, they formed the Ad Hoc Racial Profiling Committee. This committee invited the entire school to participate in gathering research on the methods other colleges use to report microaggression and protect students and faculty. This research became the foundation of their proposal.
SG closed the proposal portion of their meeting to the public. Fort explained that they did so in order to provide SG members with complete freedom to discuss both the Racial Profiling Proposal and other proposals.