By Wylliam Smith
The University of Iowa took steps to initiate a Biased Assessment and Response Team, but now it’s back to the drawing board. The program was scheduled to begin this fall but will now be reformed.
“We felt we were just too far away from the initial purpose of [what] the BART was supposed to be,” said Nadine Petty, the director of the UI Center Diversity and Enrichment. “We wanted to make sure that whatever we came up with would meet the concerns of the campus, and for that reason, we thought it best to start all over and get it right.”
When it comes back, Petty said, it may not be called “BART,” but the program is being changed to better help students.
“Ultimately, what happened is what we ended up with, the final product, didn’t meet the concerns of the students,” she said.
Petty said the purpose of BART isn’t necessarily to deal with problems that break laws or things that violate school policy; instead, it deals with situations that encompass people’s senses of belonging and being accepted.
“It’s a protocol that a lot of institutions have established,” she said. “The point of BART really is to offer a formalized process for students, for faculty, and for staff to report instances of bias.”
UI President Bruce Harreld said in an interview with The Daily Iowan published that the program is being put together through a highly collaborative and careful process, one that attempts to use all elements of shared government.
“So, in the team that’s been working on this — the administration has been in it, the faculty have been in it, the staff have been in it, the students have been in [it] — we have a couple subject-matter experts here at the law school and a couple other places who really do know what they’re talking about when [you] get to creating positive teaching environments, [or talking about] First Amendment issues, so they have been working [toward] it since sometime last spring,” Harreld said.
Petty said BART has made its way to the UI because students requested it.
“Coming from where I’m from, I saw a lot of racism, and it’s sickening,” said UI student Shelby Strube, who is from Illinois. “I’ve seen a lot of homophobia, too, because my best friend is gay. Those are two things that really hit a nerve for me, so I feel that definitely people should be able to feel protected and be who they want to be.”
Dean of Students Lyn Redington wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan that the school is actively developing a new process for responding to and addressing incidents of bias.
“This fall we will announce a centralized resource to address student concerns about racism, sexism, and other forms of injustice, while protecting the tenets of free speech and academic freedom,” she said in the email.
Petty said she feels BART was scrapped and restarted because it is best to get it right and to not rush the project.
“The most important thing right now is to make sure that students know that there is a place on campus that they can come to,” she said. “They can come to the [Center for Diversity & Enrichment], they can go to the Dean of Students’ office; there are designated places that any student of any type can go to if they feel they are feeling an incident of bias.”
