SIUC committee focuses on diversity, hate crimes

The Counseling Center can be reached at 453-5371 and is located in Woody Hall A-302. To arrange a workshop, report a bias incident or hate crime, find counsel or support or get more information, contact the Office of Diversity and Equity at 453-4807. Callers have the option to remain anonymous.

There are about 450 Registered Student Organizations at SIUC, but not one is devoted to issues of diversity, hate crimes and bias incidents. Roki Abakoui, a psychologist at the Counseling Center on campus, says this would be a great thing for students to establish.

Abakoui was among a group of 12 faculty, graduate students and staff from Student Affairs and administrators from SIUC who attended a nationwide training program called "Stop the Hate" in March 2004. "Stop the Hate" training programs educate trainees on how to conduct workshops addressing bias incidents and hate crimes on college campuses. After attending the training, the group formed the Committee on Diversity and Tolerance.

"It's a group of individuals with a passion for this, who want to make this campus continue to be, and more strongly, be a welcoming, accepting and productive environment from people who are different from each other in many, many different ways," said Carmen Suarez, who is head of the Committee on Diversity and Tolerance and also attended "Stop the Hate" training. "Stop the Hate" was created by a conglomeration of organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, the National Center for Hate Crime Prevention and the Association of College Unions International.

Abakoui said college campuses have addressed diversity and tolerance because statistically college campuses fall third among most likely places in the country for bias incidents and hate crimes to occur. Only 400-odd people have been trained through the "Stop the Hate" program nationwide, which, Abakoui said, makes SIUC elite among colleges and universities.

"It's important to note that we're not just talking about diversity [as] only racial/ethnic or only sexual orientation. We're talking about diversity very broadly," Abakoui said. "This includes religious groups. Some of the people most targeted are people of the Jewish faith and then also, lately, of course since 9/11, people who are Arab or who look Arab or Muslim, so we're including all kinds of diversity."

A strong desire to be involved in the issues surrounding diversity on campus has played a large role in SIUC's motivation to bring the Committee on Diversity and Tolerance into existence, Abakoui said. "The people who attended the training are really people who are very active in diversity causes or who are interested in diversity and have a passion for that work," Abakoui said. "This is something we thought was needed on campus for a long time."

A variety of circumstances are considered bias incidents and hate crimes, which is part of what is covered in the workshops. "Everything from racial slurs, jokes and graffiti to more serious things like the Matthew Shepard incident," Suarez said. "That's a huge continuum on everything in between, things that make people feel unwelcome and uncomfortable."

The 50- to 70-minute workshops have been primarily requested by residence halls, though a wide range of academic departments have also requested workshops in their classrooms, including several in the College of Education and College of Liberal Arts, as well as in business, information technology and architecture. However, the committee plans to go beyond the classroom and workshop setting soon.

The Committee on Diversity and Tolerance is hoping to provide a "Stop the Hate" program in the Student Center before spring break, Suarez said, which will also introduce the committee to the campus. At the opening, the Committee on Diversity and Tolerance hopes to have both a new hotline and a new Web site up and running through which students can report bias incidents or hate crimes and obtain additional help or information. Additionally, the Counseling Center provides related services for students who've been targeted or victimized by hate crimes.

"If they felt they just needed some support around this but they weren't in a place where they felt they could really report it or want to report it officially, they can still come to the Counseling Center," Abakoui said. "And we'd be happy to see them and take care of them."