Georgetown Response to Hate Crimes

[SSHoya]

Some Georgetown students are calling for the school to improve how it responds to alleged hate crimes or bias incidents, saying the current process is perceived as unlikely to produce results.

The frustration has been on display in recent months as the university disclosed incidents, including one from last spring in which a student says another student yelled a racial slur at her. Georgetown has said it was unable to definitively determine who made the remark, but some students have questioned the investigation.

www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/20/georgetown-hate-crime-protests/

[hoyaguy]

Feb 20, 2023 7:03:05 GMT -5 SSHoya said:

Some Georgetown students are calling for the school to improve how it responds to alleged hate crimes or bias incidents, saying the current process is perceived as unlikely to produce results.

The frustration has been on display in recent months as the university disclosed incidents, including one from last spring in which a student says another student yelled a racial slur at her. Georgetown has said it was unable to definitively determine who made the remark, but some students have questioned the investigation.

www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/02/20/georgetown-hate-crime-protests/

Yeah I read the email from the school and got the story explained to me thanks to someone I know who is still a student. It all seemed very convenient for the school, and I don't think it was just slur, but remarks about her entire race and what the student thought of them (and the public report of the incident at the time was sent to the student body near the bottom of a newsletter email many do not read). Apparently there have been a significant number of other hate crimes in the past year such as swastikas being drawn and it is a problem I think that if the school does little to nothing when it actually gets the chance to, then it emboldens these disgraceful people. 

Side note: I have been noticing more incidents of schools during incidents that would make them look bad, not that this is new, but another example is when I found out about the Princeton student who died last semester and I did not find the story until I came across it reading a British news website for soccer stuff and could not find much else for outlets on this side of the pond. Shame

[RusskyHoya]

Yeah, this whole thing is kind of a fiasco...

washingtoncitypaper.com/article/581171/georgetown-police-loses-evidence-of-on-campus-hate-crime/

Working with Associate Vice President of Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, and Compliance Olabisi “Bisi” Ladeji Okubadejo, Giles was able to identify two individuals who verbally assaulted them using still photos that GUPD provided from their security footage of students entering and exiting the building. The university’s judicial process seemed to be on track.

But just a few weeks after that May meeting, Okubadejo informed Giles that GUPD had lost its security footage.

An official statement from a Georgetown University spokesperson explains that GUPD began the investigation by “performing a witness canvas and reviewing GOCard swipes and security footage to identify potential suspects who entered New South [dorm] near the time of the incident.” GUPD did not find video footage of the actual incident, the statement says, but collected still photos from the video of potential suspects. On April 29, “it was discovered that the video server had failed and, as a result, the video footage of students entering and exiting New South throughout that day had been lost.” A GU spokesperson says the still photos were not lost.

Absolute amateur hour. Everything after that point has, presumably, been driven by lawyers advising the University that expulsion (the victim's demand) or other harsh punishment would leave the school exposed to legal challenge from the accused . No one wants to end up in a Columbia/Paul Nungesser situation.

I wonder if the new Todd Olson is regretting her recent career move...

washingtoncitypaper.com/article/588754/georgetown-closes-hate-crime-investigation-without-identifying-perp/