[Neela Wilson] I see all of our panelists are here so
I'd like to
go ahead and introduce our panelists and
myself.
First we have Su'ad Mohamud,
student leader and agent of change at
the University of Maryland.
Next we have Diane Krejsa, Deputy General
Counsel at the University of Maryland
We have John Bertot as is both
a professor and Associate Provost for
Faculty Affairs here at Maryland
and we have Captain Moss is a senior
member within the University of Maryland
police department and
also serves on the Hate Bias Response Team
and last but not least we have Neijma
Celestine Donnor
Program Director of Bias Incident
Support Services within the
Office of Diversity and Inclusion so
thank you to all of our panelists for
joining
us for this incredibly important
conversation today
so my name is Neela Wilson and i'm the
Advisor for Retention Initiatives in the
Student Success Office
within the Office of Undergraduate
Studies so I'll be helping to moderate
the discussion today
before we begin as each panelist
responds to initial questions
I ask that you please reintroduce
yourselves
for the audience members
so we can go ahead and get started with
our first question
and you can speak in whatever order you
would like if you want to just jump in
'why do you think that there are tensions
between inclusion and free speech on
college campuses and how have you seen
this tension in your work or
interactions?'
(Neijma) I'm happy to jump in under that one
so
I think in my
particular role I
I see this this
need to want to ensure that we have
diversity and inclusion
and equity
and at the same time it has been
difficult to
balance that with
free speech a lot because in many ways
the
students and the population that I see
which tends to be
mostly folks that are marginalized often
feel that the first amendment was not
created or written
with them in mind, right, and so
that there is not always equal access
to the ways in which people are allowed
to practice free speech
there's also some tension around
yes we understand that you know someone
has a
legal and constitutional right to
engage in this but their action is
causing me pain
right and it's very harmful to me
and are you saying then that
my pain doesn't matter and some ways
particularly I will say for black folks
oftentimes the message that they
receive is that black
black pain doesn't matter because when
you tell me that this person
is doing something that is legal
you're also saying that the pain that
I've experienced is not
important or not valued so I think
that
creates some tension based on what I see
and what folks have said to me
(Su'ad)I like to add on to what Neijma said
that's absolutely beautiful
I wanted to add on yes as someone
who's a part of
the black community on campus as a
student
I've seen free speech be used more as a
sort
of weapon against marginalized students
and this sense of a lack of
accountability
for people who use it and
their intent to use free
freedom of speech as a means to put
down
and to harm and cause pain to
marginalized students
so I think there's that dichotomy
between
freedom and speech and inclusive
language
because fundamentally if they're both
used together
like it they both can work together it's
just
the freedom of speech that I have
witnessed a lot in my life
and on campus is more of centered towards
using a weapon more against
students who don't necessarily fit
the white male cisgender role
(Diane) this is Diane Krejsa, I'm an
attorney, I work in the university's
legal office
and I think both what Su'ad and Neijma
have been saying
is is a real problem on our campus
because
we need to make everyone feel welcomed
on our campus and included and a very
important way to do that
is through our speech so one of the ways
that
the legal office tries to address this
problem because there is a tension is to
educate as to how the harm
is real and therefore how the speech
needs to be changed in order to be more
inclusive
rather than simply acknowledge that
there might be
free speech rights which exist under our
constitution which
may not have been written with every
black and brown face in mind I will
certainly acknowledge that
but nevertheless I think it is a much
more
productive way for this tension to be
resolved
if we can work to re-educate people
about words in a manner that they use
them that allows people to not feel
excluded so the tension is real
because there is
not always a uniform understanding
of what the speech means, people have
different
backgrounds whether they're privileged
backgrounds or non-privileged
backgrounds majority minority
exposures all peoples
have different backgrounds which affect
how they
speak to each other and learn from each
other and understand each other
and I think that the way to address this
tension
has to be through a means of
re-educating people as to
what the effect of words really are in
terms of how
people feel they can express themselves
and be a part of whatever they are
participating in
this is a very important aspect of the
university
we don't want people to feel excluded
and they they shouldn't feel excluded
because
they are as much of what we are
there is no we it is all of us
so that that's even in the way I'm
trying to frame this it's difficult to
say because it's a matter of
numbers and who's in the majority but
why that is is a matter of history
and not necessarily a matter of where we
should
be and want to be as an institution
right now and getting people to that
point with laws that are outdated or old
or don't reflect the reality of where we
are
is the tension that we work with every
day
(Neela) thank you for that input, did
Captain Moss or John did you want
to add anything further
(John) yeah I'll just say I mean so I agree
with much of what's been said
so thank you, Neijma, Su'ad, and Diane for
your comments
you know I think one one aspect I'll add
to this because you know I play
two roles right you know I am a faculty
member and I'm also
Associate Provost or Faculty Affairs so I
see sort of
two different levels I guess of
of the issue at times one
university-wide one more colloquial to
my own
I'm sort of faculty life but you know i
think one issue that
that I would just bring to the fore
is
pick up a little bit of where Diane left
off I think is
you know faculty often you know we take
more of a clinical approach
an analytic approach to things like
academic freedom free speech and
you know we look at it as as a member of
a faculty community
we have these rights, right and the
reality is we're trained that way
right I mean I'm not condoning sometimes
how we come across
but but our training is more
clinical in nature and and we look at
speech and academic freedom as more of a
a right that's bestowed upon us as as
academics right
and and I think that sometimes that
view
gets in the way of having a dialogue
right and and I think it's really
critical to recognize and understand
that our community is comprised of many
different views
many different individuals and how to
engage in those discussions
or come across in a respectful,
civil
way so that we can see each other's
viewpoints is absolutely critical
but but what I'll say though is
putting my
Associate Provost hat on for a moment
you know we have tensions that come up
to our level because faculty feel
like they are unable sometimes to have a
conversation
without it being taken out of context or
somehow
being misrepresented because they'll
they'll
say things from again analytic sort of
clinical
this is our class this is our topic
perspective
and and it doesn't quite come across
as
intended right and and I think that's
where we end up
at least in that role that I play
with tensions between faculty, staff,
and students
(Captain Moss) I am Captain Moss, University Maryland
Police Department
what I would add to the conversation
first is that i think we need to
understand that
people come here to the university with
their own set of morals their own sort
of values
their own biases their own prejudice
and I think that what leads to
some of the tensions here with free
speech and inclusion
is the fact that I agree with Diane that
we do need to
educate individuals a little bit better
than we have been
I would like to credit ODI and Neijma
with some of the efforts that she's
been doing and pursuing out here on
campus
when there is an incident which
University of Maryland Police Department
we respond to all hate bias incidents
and we investigate all hate bias
incidents
so when we do respond we contact Neijma
and Neijma reaches out
to those that have been affected I think
it's also important to educate those
who are offenders so that we can
change that mentality
and maybe help them get to help to
get them to a place where they can
understand
the impact of what they've done to
individuals on campus
so I think education is probably the
best way for us to
deal with that gap between inclusion
and free speech
[Neela] great thank you everyone for your input
to go on to the
next question given the increase in
online activity for work
and academics how has this exacerbated
tensions between inclusion and free
speech
Captain Moss here again I think what
I would what I would say
is that we went abruptly to an online
platform it wasn't planned
obviously with COVID
and so what we were seeing initially
from
a police perspective what we were seeing
was
individuals not being able to secure
these meetings with Zoom we got
some guidance here from
UMD DIT and they put that out in
here recently with some of the
security features that Zoom has been
improving upon
and with time people have become a lot
better with securing these types of
events
so I haven't seen individuals
I would say in the last month and a half
we haven't had a lot of reports
of zoom bombing type incidents
recently we did come across
a lot of issues where jurisdiction is a
problem
for us now because individuals are no
longer
centered on campus in our jurisdiction
when these occur
so we had to talk to the Office of
the State's Attorney
about how do we actually investigate
these types of incidents when
and for all intents and purpose
it doesn't occur in our jurisdiction
what we were told our guidance was that
actually we do not have jurisdiction
if
the incident did not the communication
did not
initiate or terminate here on campus
and that we would have to refer
individuals to
their local jurisdictions because
if not we don't have legal process we
don't have the ability
to get to issue search warrants
subpoenas
or to follow up investigatively on those
situations so
that's some of the stuff that we were
seeing initially
now what I'm seeing and now that I think
now what I think is going to be a big
issue
is we're seeing individuals
do offensive things online or submit
offensive
offensive things online and people are
actually calling them out on it
people are actually identifying these
individuals
and they are reporting back to their
finding out who they're affiliated with
and reporting back to those
places where they're affiliated and
expecting them to take action
on these individuals and so I do know
that
some of that has happened here recently
here at University of Maryland with
students
or at least a student
who was who did something online
in regards to 'george floyd challenge' the
'george floyd challenge'
and that was referred back to the
Office of Student Conduct so that's
something that
I think is going to press the university
to kind of answer where
where do we go now what is the scope of
our authority
when there's individuals who do
something
off campus in their home not necessarily
related to our
to our jurisdiction what do we do then
so I think that's something that's
emerging right now
(Diane) thank you Captain Moss for that and
and
that point about the jurisdiction issues
is very interesting
and and I understand that that's
something that you're still working on
what are some of the workarounds that
you have been able to do
to address some of these issues even
though they're outside of the
jurisdiction
to either support the victims of
bias, hate-bias incidents or
to address the perpetrators
for those Zoom bombing
type incidents what we did was we
referred individuals to
FBI because the FBI wanted to
be involved in in those types of
investigations for Zoom bombing
type incidents we also
put them in contact with their local
jurisdictions
we didn't just tell them you know it's
not our
nation go away we put them in contact
with their local
jurisdiction so that they could file a
formal complaint with that local
jurisdiction so that they could follow
up
we also make sure that since they are
either faculty,, staff or students here at
the University of Maryland we refer them
to the bias incident support team
so that they can actually get the
type of
resources that are on campus to kind of
help them work their way through
problems when they've been
affected by these hate bias
incidents
(Neela) great thank you and I do want to give
the rest of the panelists an opportunity
to answer
and address the second question and
I'll I'll read it through again just so
you
can refresh your memory given the
increase in online activity for work and
academics
how has this exacerbated tensions
between inclusion and free speech
so anyone else in the panel who
wishes to speak go ahead
(Neijma) I will speak I just want to say that
there's a lot of screaming kids in the
background so I want to apologize
ahead of time um so
for me I think there were sort of
two things that really stood out in my
world one
was there was definitely
this increase in
people
making online attacks against
marginalized folks and definitely making
intentional attempts to make folks not
feel included
and I think that that increased
because now people were not face to face
so
people felt I guess braver
to be able to say things and do
things
while also being able to be anonymous
I think towards the end I will give some
specific numbers about
sort of like trends that we've seen
online but I think that's one of them so
definitely we
saw an uptick in
particularly anti-black
racist incidents happening and I
think in part
being online gave some folks
I guess some courage or what
maybe that's not the right word but
feeling braver and bolder
the second thing as we think as I think
about inclusion
was really around
students being in their classes and
classroom settings
and so there are students that have
accommodations
and had accommodations however
once we switched to a virtual setting
it meant that the accommodations that
worked in person
no longer necessarily worked online
or maybe needed to be tweaked and I
think that there was
some tensions around there
in terms of and maybe this is not
necessarily answering the question to
the free speech
part particularly but as as as we
think about sort of like just bias
coming for an online setting I think we
had to have some discussions
around now that we're in an online
setting what what does it mean for our
students
who may have
you know accommodations or
disabilities what does it mean
for them to feel included so i think
that that were
was two things that we saw as we switch
to this virtual platform
(Captain Moss) I was gonna say that it's
it's really important for all of us
to understand that this space
this online space can still
be something within the university's
control
if we are talking about class behavior
on in this online space if it's
committed by
our students and our staff
and faculty is subject to
you know processes on campus that can
lead
to discipline it's not
always easy to to address
in a one-time event but I do think the
university
has the ability to continue to put
together expectations
for online behavior within the work and
academic
setting that allow us to
take advantage
of this as as a that's not the right
word
take advantage isn't really the right
word what I mean is that we
don't have to accept that this is a
different
space that we can't control I mean
(Diane) Captain Moss is completely
right about you know if we have Zoom
bombing
that's outside of our jurisdiction we
may not be able to prosecute
or pursue as a hate crime or a bias
incident
but if we have repeated behavior by our
own faculty and staff
as part of their academic and work
activities that is that is something
that
is within our control for investigation
and response I have to say
that it's my experience
and this is somewhat of a personal
observation that
treating these matters
as disciplinary matters and trying to
punish does not always lead to the
correct
outcome in terms of
the outcome being an improved behavior
pattern
I personally have seen people become
defensive
and it's counterproductive and doesn't
serve
the purpose of eliminating and ending
the problematic behavior the hate bias
behavior so i don't know that that
tactic always works
I think the modeling behavior tactic
works better the expectations of what we
want from our students and from our
staff and for our faculty
seems to work better but I just wanted
to address the fact that
it's not always outsiders unfortunately
and even though
our own students might be in other
jurisdictions
we might have the ability
because of their activities related
to
school learning and and work
be able to take some form of action
...
related to our own policies and
procedures
(Neela) great thank you for that I want to
give Su'ad
a chance to chime in as well
(Su'ad) thank you sorry so I actually
wanted to add on to a couple of the
opinions mentioned I
because I switched to the online
platform I feel like
the university because of their lack
of preparedness for this switch
a lot of focus has been on that and not
really on
where all of this originates from and
that this is just merely another
symptom of the climate
and conversations that we are having on
campus
we don't really talk at all about
hate bias response we don't really talk
about
hate speech we don't talk about any of
these topics
generally I... I can't technically speak
for the entire student body
but from what I've seen in terms of the
curriculum we've been exposed to as
students
we don't really discuss things like this
and
the behavior in general like
sentiment towards hate speech and
general
dislike and general just hate
generally
to marginalized folks hasn't really
been addressed and
there's this general climate of again
it's the
lack of accountability there's a lot
that the university
is not involved in when it comes to
these type of situations
and even with
many several situations on campus
especially with anti-black sentiment and
I feel like what we do is we accept free
speech but we fail to
condone the intentions and we fail to
condone
the overall content of this speech and
that is something that
is generally more silenced above
the general opinion of the campus
I've heard from a lot of friends, I've
spoken with a lot of people on campus
and there's this general understanding
that when something
happens like a hate bias incident
everybody
feels some form of remorse
they reach out but then it disappears
and fleets so I feel like
there's never and even when a hate bias
incident occurs
as some have occurred to me at my time
at the University of Maryland there's
never
a clear understanding as to what should
we do next
what can we do next so I feel like this
overall ambiguity has prevented students
from acknowledging that hate speech
itself
is something that is a heavy matter and
that
the students who are victims of hate
speech
feel like they don't have the support
from the university
and I think this is also something
that I've been
trying to reach out to even as a
freshman as someone who's very
strong about racial advocacy and
just overall social justice movements
I've failed to be able
to establish that connection with
higher-ups on campus
and administration so I feel like this
wide disconnect
and this lack of like general
framework at least
for and transparency for students to
have when
these type of issues occur
is a strong disadvantage for students
and only continues to give
people who perform hate speech more room
and more comfort to perform it so I feel
like
we need to work on that and we need to
make sure that we have clear processes
and avenues for students to reach for
support and
for students to know for those who are
interested in
perpetrating hate speech to know that
they will be held accountable
and just in general an overall type of
education for them to understand
what their words mean and a general
social awakening
because I feel like we have not had that
yet
and we are reaching a point where
hate speech continues and and even
now on the online platform
it's it's continuing but again we're not
addressing
where the root cause is and we're not
addressing
the lack of vocal
the lack of support of vocal
advocates on campus fighting for
inclusion for black folks
for latinx folks and for indigenous
folks
bipoc on campus
so yeah I just wanted to share that
because I feel like we
never know which outlets we can reach
out to as students
and if I hadn't known people in the
Diversity and Inclusion Office
I wouldn't have been able to get
connected to the resources I needed
thank you yes absolutely I'm gonna say
I I think that that's such an important
point to
and just to make it clear that the
things that we're seeing
online the hate bias incidents and all
of that
it didn't start because we switched
to a virtual platform right there was
like already
an environment where a lot of this was
already occurring
and to your point a lot an environment
where
a lot of this was many felt allowed
right so students sort of switched onto
the platform they
then all of a sudden was like now we're
online
I think that I just want to stress that
point part of it is that the environment
was already in place for students
to feel bold to be able to do this
so I'm yeah I just wanted to
bring that point again and thank you
Su'ad for bringing that up because I
think it's a
really critical and key point thank you
I'm sorry i just wanted to mention one
more thing I think
on campus especially like it's it may
not just be
speech it's also different forms of hate
that
manifest themselves so as a student
as a black muslim woman
who goes and frequents to different
you know
places on campus as a student in
general like if
especially on south campus where
one of the bus stops where this
one of the bus stops were closed in
honor
of Lieutenant Richard Collins seeing
students
primarily white students sitting at that
bus stop
and having to be the only person who
intervenes to
tell those students to not sit there and
knowing that the university themselves I
actually was walking by
and I I saw a group of people
cleaning
the bus stop and I noticed that it
wasn't
the University who's cleaning this bus
stop and the fact that
black students like me can walk across
campus
and see that proper memorials haven't
been created
for students who have died
because of hate crimes is just another
symbol
of the lack of listening and the lack of
acknowledgement of black pain on campus
and that is definitely something that we
need to address
and something that
not only I've known and spoken about but
I've had this conversation
with a lot of other people on campus so
it's not only just hate speech it's also
hate symbolism and the lack of
the lack of support given and the lack
of
general like investment in black
students
on campus is also another form of
violence
(John) so I i'll just say a couple of things I
don't want to repeat really
thank you so much for for sharing that
and also for Neijma for your comments and
thank you actually for the bit the work
that your BISS
group does or this I'm not sure which I
should say
however you prefer because I think
it actually is
a very helpful resource to have on
campus
to navigate some of these issues frankly
but you know when you talk about the
movement online
I actually agree with some of what was
said I I don't
it highlighted disparities and it and it
also
created more of a disconnection
and and I think when you have that
disconnection it enables and amplifies
some of the issues that were already
present right and I think that that's
what
several of the speakers already
mentioned
a couple things I'll say though is I
also feel that
not only did it enable it where was
occurring through our platforms
I would say side by side with that
was the use of social media right
and and social media whether it's the
UMD reddit site or various other places
where things are being posted I think
has created
a much more difficult path sometimes
for matters of inclusion in this kind of
environment
and and it creates a lot of tensions
actually
especially when for faculty on the
faculty side
you know almost all the communication
moved online right
and and so a lot of people by
email or by posting on
the ELM sites, right, Canvas and various
other places
and and then those would get or
partially reposted and retweeted and
various other things and it created a
number of
of challenges for all of our offices
actually
but I want to go back to what Diane said
about expectations and I'm going to
share a link with you because
I think Diane was going in a direction
that i wanted to mention
you know we have actually created
through our office a series of faculty
expectations and guidelines
that I'll share with you momentarily
because
they transcend the medium right so
right now we're talking about online
but the expectation for faculty goes
beyond whether it's online right I mean
these are
citizens of our campus and we have
expectations for them
not just as members of our community
but also aspirational expectations for
them
and and so some of them are in policy
so you can you can follow that link
...
and we are working hard right I mean
this is going to be integrated into
this is new by the way I mean but but
we've been working on this for a while
and it will be put into new faculty
orientation
and a range of other things through our
office to try and set expectations
you know we are part of a community
and we have norms sometimes existing
norms
sometimes historical norms that need to
be changed but also aspirational norms
and that's what this document is
intended to try and do
to move the conversation at least on the
faculty room
(Neela) great thank you so much for sharing that
and if folks haven't seen it
john posted that in the chat box
so we received a few questions from the
audience so
we'll just jump into a few of those
...
one of the questions is what are the
panelists thoughts on
quote safe spaces versus quote brave
spaces
and the questioner says it seems to me
that brave spaces is a step backwards
so um
[Music]
(Neijma) I I'm I'm not sure in the context of
of what the
person is asking the question but i can
speak for
...
the way that we do things at this in
terms of safe
safe space brave space and i don't
necessarily think that we use either
I think that
we when when we
invite folks to offer support we
we always talk about hold in space
right
period and we we and I know that there's
a lot of literature and language around
brave space safe space and
you know we we want folks to
to enter space feeling brave we also
know that we can't guarantee safety
I think one of the things that
we try to do is is is hold space
period and when folks
come into
our office we try to make sure that that
is a space where they feel affirmed
where they feel valued where they feel
seen
where they feel heard
and that's that's what we really try to
do
for me you know if
if you use safe space if you use brave
basic what what are you actually doing
when folks get into this space with you
is more critical and important for me
I have seen folks say brave space
when you get in
to that space is something else and vice
versa so for me I guess what i'm
stressing is
what what are you doing and what are
folks doing when you are in community
and space with other people
are you affirming them are you
centering their hurt their pain
I think that to me is the more critical
thing and that's what we
try to focus on in our space and in
our office
(Neela) thank you and if you can just for the
audience
anyone's not familiar with those two
terms
would you mind sharing a little bit like
maybe the differences
(Neijma) so you know different people use
different terminology so the idea with
safe space
is people would say you know
you if you come into this session
whatever
we this is a safe space and you can be
here
I think the pushback with that has been
oftentimes people
enter the space and they do not feel
safe or
that you really can't guarantee safety
because you don't know
what's gonna happen brave space
then was another terminology which
we can't necessarily guarantee safety
but we do want to come in
into we do want you to come in here and
be brave
and feel safe to share I think one
thing for me
that I have realized is
particularly as it relates to our hate
bias incidents
when our students come to meet with us
or our faculty our staff
a lot of them have have been so
traumatized and hurt and dejected
the idea of even being brave is a big
ask
right and
so we are very careful in terms of
how we are approaching folks and I think
to stress that point when we talk about
impact I think
many people do not realize the
psychological impact that hate bias
incidents can often have
and to to ask someone to even be brave
and to say that this is a brave space
that
after something like that has happened
to them is
is is is really big and so we are like
come as you
are and we will affirm you wherever you
are
as you are great
(Neela) thank you and any of the other panelists
wants to
chime in on brave space versus
safe space or just going back to Neijma's
point of
how are we affirming students who are
coming to you all
with hate biased incidents
(Su'ad) so I'd love to I
give my opinion about uh faces because
if versus brave spaces um
so in my general understanding and
from curriculum
and of being on different grassroots
organizations
safe spaces were created for
marginalized students to be able to
connect with each other to have their
voices heard
to basically share experiences and to
have a space where they could exist
without
the singular narrative that society
pushes which is generally a narrative
that does not represent
the experiences and the hardships faced
by marginalized folks
so that is generally a safe space and
then for
the for the brave space it's more of
placing it in a more academic setting
where there are people of privilege
present in the academic setting and
they generally want to conduct dialogue
where they can break down their
different forms of understanding of
privilege and misconceptions that they
have
about marginalized folks and about
social justice
so the danger about brave spaces
however
is brave spaces places a lot of
work and a lot of emotional and
psychological
stress
personalized folks because
to have all the right answers and
basically to provide all the information
and re-educate privileged
folks in that space so it takes a lot of
...
energy and it drains marginalized people
because they're forced to relive
their trauma like Neijma
said and they're forced to have to put
their own comfort
aside and basically
take privileged folks on this journey of
reawakening and so that's the danger of
brave spaces
because at the end of the day they
exhaust marginalized folks as they are
expected to be educators to their
privileged peers
and generally in those spaces they are
often having to fight
and prove that and
have to validate their experience to
people who generally
invalidate their experiences so
gas lighting and gaslighting is
basically this understanding where
somebody tries to invalidate your
experience because they don't personally
understand it or believe it
and just because you don't understand
and you can't relate to an experience
because you come from a place of
privilege
doesn't mean that it's not a correct
experience and is being experienced
constantly by people who are
marginalized
oppression so I just wanted to clarify
that and I just wanted to say that
brave spaces generally place a lot of
strain on marginalized folks
so despite the work that is being done
in those spaces at the end of the day
black voices BIPOC voices thank you
for who
explained that and gave a definition
in the chat are generally
being absorbed and
their energy is generally being drained
in those spaces so I I as someone who
is a black muslim woman I have navigated
being in those spaces
and being imagine like as a student
being in a classroom
where you're a teacher you have to
explain something to your teacher
you have to explain something as the
only
often person of color or person who
looks like you in a room
it's kind of a it's a very daunting task
and
it's honestly a lot to ask from
it's a great alternative to brave spaces
is just listening to black voices and
listening to marginalized voices
and then making sure that you are
doing your own research
you are learning on your own and make
sure that you're not learning
through the cost of a marginalized
person's
energy mental stress and
their overall well-being
(Neela) that was fantastic thank you excellent
points
unless anyone else in the panel wanted
to jump in I can move on to the next
question from the audience
okay so
next question from the audience "curious
if the panel has any thoughts on the
Karen laws or statutes beginning to
be instituted regarding making false
accusations
or trying to use the police force as a
weapon against oppressed populations"
(Captain Moss) Neela, could you repeat that question
(Neela) sure the question
is does the panel have any thoughts
on the
quote "Karen laws or statutes
beginning to be instituted regarding
making false
accusations or trying to use the police
force as a weapon against
oppressed populations."
(Captain Moss) well, as an officer I am
all for prosecuting individuals that
make false police reports
that's not anything new
we've we've done that here at the
University of Maryland Police Department
we have charged people I personally have
charged people
with making false police reports
on individuals so me personally
I have absolutely nothing against it I
think it's
I think that is the direction that we
need to be going for individuals I think
there needs to be consequences
and repercussions for individuals that
utilize our resources when
it's unnecessary at someone else's peril
(Diane) I was just gonna chime in that I
agree with everything
that we're hearing from our
representative from the police
department and I think many people on
our campus
don't realize the number of
activities on campus that our police are
involved in
and we have precious few resources in
the sense
resources are people and people and
their time
and the time spent trying to
investigate or respond or look into
a false allegation is going to take time
away from
real allegations that we definitely are
interested in
I've been with the university a very
long time now
and over the course of many police
officer
chiefs and presidents I've seen
a continued interest in having the
police support our campus
and legitimately investigating real
problems on the campus including
hate crimes or problems under the
criminal law
that affect people of color in
particular
but more recently I have seen
and support using our police force
to look into campus
inclusion and diversity activities
being a part of
processes that affect our campus
which may not be crimes but because our
our police force is involved as both
a legitimate police force and police
force for our campus
they support and work with activities
that the university is promoting
and we want those activities to be safe
and inclusive
so when we take the resources of the few
police that we have I mean
we have a very nice force a decent size
but it's
we don't have a force that has extra
... resources
but so when we use that force
to support investigations that
that go off and are wasting their time I
really think that that's a problem
because we need to make sure that our
community
understands and appreciates the time and
energy that our police force is putting
in to keeping the whole
campus safe and that definitely includes
as I was trying to say in more recent
times efforts to have the police force
support the views of of the campus in
terms of
diversity and inclusion that would
include
you know supporting our current
president supporting our past president
who created the new office of the vice
president
of diversity inclusion all of these
things and the
and the programs that are supported have
police support in terms of activities
forums things where there might be
problematic behavior 
(Neijma) I would also like to
add not only
what I fully agree that and
and support and think that folks
definitely need to
have consequences I also think
that there are many people who engage
in those kinds of behaviors that do
not necessarily involve the police force
so it might be that you're doing things
like
reporting to HR you're reporting to
OCR-SM you're reporting to the Office of
Student Conduct
and you are a white person who are using
these university systems
that are in place to make false
accusations against people of color and
it may not necessarily be
the police I also think that there needs
to be system in place systems in
place for folks
who abuse those systems even our
Office the Bias Incident Support
making false reports that involve
marginalized folks and people of
color so not only do I support
when you are
[Music]
wasting the police resources but all of
the resources that people
use and abuse against people of color
just a quick comment on that is that
(John) Neijma thank you for raising that
because I wanted to extend this
beyond police involvement
so one thing just to point out is some
of the recent policies that we have
put into where the senate you know
puts into effect and president signs
have included language about good
faith allegations
and consequences to those who
may not put forward an allegation in
good faith right
and so the idea was so we've done this
in various misconduct policies
and so the idea was to also have
consequences for those individuals who
have put forward false allegations
because we didn't want it to just be
something that was limited to police
involvement but also in these other
ancillary investigatives that are
through benjamin's office my office
other offices across campus so that
we communicate to our community that
it's incredibly important and ethical
and whatnot to engage in these types of
behaviors to put forward allegations
in good faith right so
so thank you for raising that niche but
I think it's an important point
(Su'ad) I think i want to add on to what uh
Neijma
and John were mentioning um i definitely
agree with the concept of
making sure that we are reaching and
using other resources aside the
police department
to solve issues like this it first
puts a lot of effort and a lot of work
on the police department
but we definitely should be focusing
on different resources
and from the student perspective
I've had
my own experiences in the past with
UMPD on campus where
I was stopped and basically
questioned to show where my id was
when another student walked right by
me I remember leaving my dorm
on my way to class and eventually being
late
for to class because I was stopped by an
officer
who kept questioning to ask where
my id
was and there was a student that had
walked by me
and he was a white male and I basically
asked the officer why he didn't stop
that student
where for his id and to
show his identification but then another
police officer basically had to drag
that other officer away from me
and I remember there have been
countless
experiences with me on campus where I
have to specifically avoid
certain alleyways on my way to
class because
I have to run across campus as a
computer science major
and doing my minor as well and there are
certain alleyways that I've marked to
make sure that I don't go
in those alleyways because I often find
cop cars there and
they often ask me where I'm going and
I've responded in the past explaining
that I might go to class
but sometimes that answer isn't enough
and I notice
I noticed this even from my
freshman year
but it particularly got more spike
during my sophomore year
and just in general like this
constant
discomfort of the of police officers
when they see large groups of black
students
exiting buildings and going to different
places
and just in general movement on campus
so
that level of anxiety that it gives
people is something that a student
shouldn't have to worry about
and is something that I feel is
incredibly important but there has
there I'm not sure if there are
any initiatives in place to deal with
this but
definitely calling police officers
to deal with situations can also cause
like harm to students and
can risk causing
traumatic experiences for black students
like me
and other students on campus
(Captain Moss) Su'ad, I'd like to respond to that
what I would like like to say is number
one
sorry that you experienced that but
secondly if those types of incidents are
happening to you
you need to contact the police
department we have
things in place where we have
checks and balances on officers
we have all internal affairs where we
actually conduct investigations on
officers
and we we will get back to you on
those types of
incidents so please you
your friends everybody is listening if
there is an issue
with an officer we can't handle it if
you don't bring it to us
so if you bring it to us we will handle
it
secondly I think that people might not
realize
how heavily involved police officers are
in this university yes I
have been speaking from a police officer
perspective
but I also am
a part of this university I also
I sit on the the BISS team I sit on
the HBR team also liaise with
OCR-SM Title IX so we're all
working together constantly all the time
those things that Diane and that
Neijma were talking about as far as
referring people to Office of Student
Conduct
or the Office of Faculty Affairs or UHR
we're the ones that are conducting those
investigations and
are forming those things up
so we're we're heavily involved we wear
two hats it's not just we deal with the
criminal justice system
but we also deal administratively on
campus
so I like everybody to know that too
so there is like Diane was saying
limited resources but if you ever have
any issues like that
with officers where you feel like
something unjust happened
please contact us there's the spot right
on our website where you can go
and file a complaint
(Neela) thank you for sharing that in your in
your vulnerability and sharing that
your experiences and and thank you
Captain Moss for explaining that there
are
internal reviews that is being done
in UMPD
we are short on time but I do want to
think of one more
audience question before we wrap up
"there have seen growing
white supremacist and fascist
underground organizing
and recruitment as well as public
postering and flyering on campus
beyond filing reports with ODI and BISS
what else can we do?"
and we'll only have time for maybe one
or two panelists
Captain Moss do you want to go
(Captain Moss) I'm going to need the question again
(Neela) sure no problem it is
there has on campus they're seeing
growing
white supremacist and fascist
underground organizing
and recruitment as well as public
postering and flyering on campus
beyond filing reports with ODI and BISS
what else can we do? 
(Captain Moss) all of those incidents I can tell you 
because I'm in charge of investigation
all all of those incidents that are
reported to the University of Maryland
police department are thoroughly
investigated
and if there's any action that we can
take we do take it
so we go out we canvass the area
we make sure that we pull down all of
those
all that propaganda and if there's a
crime that actually took place like
malicious destruction of property
we're seeking seeking out those
individuals
and we're seeking to bring them to the
criminal justice system
if it occurred where that person was
affiliated with the university then we
would go through the proper resource
at the university to deal with that
type of situation
so I can assure you that each and
every one of those incidents
are being investigated and
these individuals are
charismatic and they are looking and
like the the person said they are
recruiting
and they wouldn't be here recruiting if
there weren't
some response at some point from some
people on campus
so we are
investigating those incidents as they
occur
I can't promise you that we're gonna uh
arrest someone
but we are investigating so 
(Neijma) just as a final thought I think to answer that
question
in addition to reporting
to all the various structures whether
it's UMPD,
BISS, ODI
Office of Student Conduct so I think that
that's one way to think about it like
when these incidents happen whether it's
flyering or some
putting up flyers or whatever I also
think it's really important that as
someone asked what can we do as we think
about how we respond to these incidents
it's really important that we are
centering
those who have been impacted I think
oftentimes which i'm not saying it's not
important that we do put a lot of time
and
energy into the offenders and thinking
about how can we
you know arrest them and do whatever to
the offenders
and I often find that that is time and
energy energy that we could
be spending um or also spending
supporting marginalized folks because
what I found
when I came on this campus that we were
spending so much time thinking about
what we needed to do to offenders that
marginalized students and faculty and
staff were feeling
unheard unnoticed and as though they
experiences did not matter
and so I think finding ways to center
folks while also thinking about and
advocating
for and making reports but I think a big
part of what we can also do is how do we
hold space how do we center
those who have been impacted and harmed
and how do
we ensure that they get healing
because one thing that I can tell you is
when you make a report even when someone
has been arrested
or which I think needs to happen I think
sometimes we forget that there also
needs to be work on and the folks who
have been
impacted and so I think
if you are a person and you're like I've
done all I can do I've made all the
reports that I can make
think about what are the ways that I can
center these folks who have been
impacted
and help them in their journey to to
healing
so that would be one thing that I would
offer
(Neela) thank you that was an excellent point
and an excellent final point
now that we're beyond two o'clock I I
wanted to
thank all of the panelists Su'ad,
Diane, John, Captain Moss, and Neijma
thank you so much for
your time your energy and your insight
and thank you to the audience for
your time as well and for your
thoughtful questions
and I hope everyone has a really good
afternoon
thank you thank you thank you
thank you bye-bye bye
