After an anonymous, racially-charged letter was distributed to residents in Drackett Tower in 2006, university officials decided to take action. Their response was a university organization to track and resolve any campus incident motivated by bias.

Now in its second year, the university’s Bias Assessment and Response Team continues its mission to promote a more diverse, educated and tolerant community through the leadership of an advisory committee and response team.

The organization carries out its own investigations and coordinates responses to incidents, but if the case is serious enough it moves to a different jurisdiction.

“If it rises to [a significant] level, either the police or student judicial system is doing that investigation,” said Georgina Dodge, assistant vice provost of the Office of Minority Affairs and co-convener of BART.

In its responses, BART works closely with a variety of departments and offices, but consults often with the Office of Student Judicial Affairs.

“We have a holistic view of the situations, looking at the individuals involved, and what their needs are,” said Andrea Goldblum, director of the Office of Student Judicial Affairs.

Dodge agrees. “Our first concern is for students and their safety,” she said.

Because BART is still relatively young it is difficult to track trends in biases, but Dodge said the majority of incidents reported are more private conflicts in university residence halls.

The recent presidential election has also spurred incidents.

“As we anticipated, the elections have really stirred up this discussion about race and the terms that people use to describe each other and how that is interpreted,” said Julius Mayo, program coordinator of University Housing.

BART is also forming a student group to spread awareness of the organization, which, according to Dodge, prevents bias-related activity.

“We’re trying so hard to be proactive,” Dodge said. “Eventually we don’t even want to have BART. But for now, it’s important for us to track what’s happening and provide suggestions to people on what to do with the information.”

Students are encouraged to report any bias-related incident on BART’s Web site at www.studentaffairs.osu.edu/bias/history.asp.

Leigh Brock can be reached at [email protected].