Virginia Tech’s "Bias Response Team" and the First Amendment
Whose Interests Do Bias Response Teams Serve?
Virginia Tech’s Bias Response Team and the First Amendment (free link)
The advertising catchphrase “see something, say something” calls to mind suspicious packages that might be bombs. At Virginia Tech, that slogan applies to the school’s official Bias Intervention and Response Team, or BIRT. Hokies are encouraged to report one another’s ill-considered opinions or crass jokes. On May 31, 2023 the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals declined to end this, but a dissent by veteran Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III is a persuasive signal flare for the Supreme Court to take the case and defend free speech. A Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals dissent is a signal flare for the Supreme Court to take this case. (Wall Street Journal June 12, 2023.)
What are Bias Response Teams?
“One way that institutions have responded to hostile campus environments for minoritized students is by creating bias response teams (BRTs). This case study examines ways 16 campus educators (i.e., student affairs professionals, faculty, and administrators) at a large predominantly White public university in the Midwest deployed and reinforced dominant conceptions of cultural and social capital when responding to incidents. Findings indicate that BRT work often stalls out at supporting victims of bias and does not often engender the larger organizational change desired by campus educators. Implications for campus educators responding to incidents of bias are discussed.”1
Pen America: Cautions and tips for bias response systems
Cautions and tips for bias response systems | PEN America
Recent articles on Bias Response Teams
Ferguson, Christopher. Bias Response Teams Are a Bad Idea. Chronicle of Higher Education. June 5, 2023.
Garces, Liliana M., Evelyn Ambriz, and Jackie Pedota. “Legal Challenges to Bias Response Teams on College Campuses.” Educational researcher 51.6 (2022): 431–435.
Miller, Ryan A et al. “A Balancing Act: Whose Interests Do Bias Response Teams Serve?” Review of higher education 42.1 (2018): 313–337.
Ryan A. Miller, Tonia Guida, Stella Smith, S. Kiersten Ferguson & Elizabeth Medina (2018) Free Speech Tensions: Responding to Bias on College and University Campuses, Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, 55:1, 27-39,
LePeau, Lucy A et al. “Campus Educators Deploying Cultural and Social Capital: Critically Examining a Bias Response Team.” Journal of college student development 59.6 (2018): 681–697.
"hostile campus environments for minoritized students"
Academic liberals often seem to display something akin to Munchausen by Proxy:
Sicken your charge (those white kids are dangerously privileged! how can you handle coming to a place founded by people who don't look like you? be on the alert for classic microaggressions like hair touching and asking where you're from, etc.);
Then the administrative staff and other concerned parties appear with healing words, safe spaces, and a number you can dial if someone hurts your feelings (the world is hostile and dangerous, but mama will always be here to protect you)...
Or: you can't be a savior, if there are no victims.
A present:
14-YEAR-OLD IRISH GIRL BEHIND VIRAL ‘I AM NOT A DRESS’ POEM
https://www.megynkelly.com/2023/04/28/14-year-old-irish-girl-behind-viral-i-am-not-a-dress-poem-speaks-out-about-trans-indoctrination/
“I Am Not A Dress” by @brandubh4
We are women, we are warriors of steel.
Woman is something no man will ever feel.
Woman is not a skill that any man can hone.
Woman is our word and it is ours alone.
I am not a dress to be worn on a whim,
A man in a dress is nonetheless a him.
Women are not simply what we wear.
If this offends you, I do not care.
I am not an idea in any man’s mind
And my purpose in life is not to be kind.
So while my rights are trampled every day of the week,
I will not stand by being docile and meek.
I am not defined by sexist lies.
There is more to a woman than that shallow guise,
That guise of dresses, bikinis, and skirts.
Those clothes are not what womanhood is worth.
I am not a bitch, a TERF, a whore, a slag,
Hysterical, witch, a slut, a hag.
No, I am a woman. I am a female,
Who will not let her rights be put up for sale.
I am not defined by what men are not,
So to hell with cis misogynistic rot.
I am a woman, I’m not as subset of my sex.
If this makes me a dinosaur, so be it, I’m a T-Rex.
I am not a bleeder nor a menstruator,
A womb carrier or a uterus haver.
These words and phrases are such a sham.
Just call me woman, it’s who I am.
We are women, we are warriors of steel.
Woman is something no man will ever feel.
Woman is not a skill that any man can hone.
Woman is our word and it is ours alone.