After reading an article about Bias Incident Reporting at The College of William & Mary, I am not sure what is a fair, safe, legal system to implement.
The goal of W&M’s system is “to assist members of the William and Mary community—students, staff, and faculty—in bringing bias incidents to the College’s attention.” In theory it sounds like a good program. They initially allowed for anonymous reporting. But that lead to an outcry from not only within the school, but from outside groups. The pressure was so great that W&M revised the system, but it’s still not perfect.
Problems still remain—for one thing, the website states that “If you are uncertain whether an occurrence meets the bias incident definition, please report the occurrence.” Even with the new, constitutional definition of a “bias incident,” this statement opens the door for abuse. Moreover, although anonymous reporting is no longer allowed, it is unclear whether someone accused of a “bias incident” has a right to know his or her accuser’s identity—and the right to confront one’s accuser is an essential aspect of due process.
Other schools have similar systems such as The University of Virginia and Oregon State University. Most include reporting via email, paper, phone, or in person but all are still torn as to the level of privacy given to both the reporter and the accused.
I wonder what the level of abuse is for anonymous systems or is the reaction unfounded and exaggerated? I can’t find any data saying the systems are abused or not abused.
