The University of Chicago has completed a campus climate survey that measured students, faculty, and staff opinions on race relations and other topics. In the spring of 2016, the survey questionnaire was sent to 14,658 students, 3,315 faculty, academic appointees and postdoctoral researchers, and 7,621 staff.
The survey found that members of the campus community have a significantly more positive perception of their personal status on campus than they do of the overall institutional climate. For example, 27 percent of Black respondents said that they perceived their “proximal climate” as racist. But 40 percent of Black respondents perceived the overall institutional climate as racist. Some 18 percent of White students perceived the overall institutional climate as racist.
Some 40 percent of Black faculty members gave the university a positive review on the issue of racism for them personally but only 18 percent gave a positive review for the institution as a whole. For White faculty members, 79 percent said the racial climate was positive for them personally and two thirds said the overall institutional climate was positive in regards to race.
Black staff members were far more likely than Black faculty or Black students to view the racial climate on campus as positive.
