This past January, the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education announced that it had launched an investigation into whether Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, had properly addressed racial bias incidents on campus. The investigation was implemented following a complaint filed by an alumna of the university. The complaint was filed after an incident on campus in November where a multicultural dormitory was vandalized with eggs and racist graffiti.
Now, the Department of Education has announced that Lehigh University has signed a voluntary resolution agreement with the Office for Civil Rights to resolve the matter.
Under the agreement the university agreed to the following:
- To issue a statement by February 15 that the university does not tolerate any acts of discrimination or harassment.
- Compose a formal policy prohibiting racial harassment and submit a draft of that policy to the Department of Education for approval.
- Fully implement the policy within 45 days of receiving approval from the Department of Education.
- Revise the university’s Code of Conduct, if necessary, to make sure it adequately deals with issues of racial harassment.
- Provide training for faculty, staff, and students on the university’s racial harassment policies.
- Conduct a campus climate survey annually to determine the extent of racial discrimination and harassment on campus.
- File annual reports with the Department of Education on all reported incidents of racial discrimination and harassment and how those incidents were handled by the university.
They need to look into the rural White colleges and universities in Oklahoma. The Confederacy lost the Civil War and Oklahoma never got the memo.
While reading the issues that this university will agree to in the future, I trust that some of you “youngsters” out there will understand that during the 60’s through the 90’s universities were even “then” pretending that this was the “first” time of an “issue” and that a new rule needs to be made.
Does anyone really believe that these “rules” need to be developed in 2014? Actually, they need to be implemented instead of pretending this issue needs “new rules.” Each time since the 1960’s this country seems to pretend, “OH, this is the FIRST TIME”.
So, let’s see. Lehigh is a “Northern University” of 9,000 students in Pennsylvania.
Each time a new university has a “racial issue”, they get to start from the beginning pretending that THIS is the first time. It is so sad that even many Black individuals believe “this is the first time.”
After 50 years of discussing “affirmative action” and “fairness” in universities, does anyone really believe that the department of education must write “new guidelines”? for any one university? My guess is, by writing these “new guidelines” it means, no one on Lehigh’s campus is “guilty of anything” because there were “no rules or guidelines”. Now on to the next campus; next week. The farce continues.
I guess until a new solution comes up this is what will happen. Did you have a solution to offer?