University-Wide Restructure of Bias Reporting Policies

The department chair was notified earlier last week regarding the mandated reorganization of bias reporting tools at the university. Rather than the previous bias reporting tool, bias incidents should be reported to the central UW Bias Reporting Tool found on the campus website.

As far as we understand, this was directly communicated from the university administration to the individual departments which previously had their individual bias reporting tools and the teams designated to handle such cases; this is likely a university-wide restructuring of how bias reporting is handled, effectively bypassing department administration and their designated teams and pushing bias incidents to a "centralized pipelines". University administration has not been clear whether this change in policy is related to the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard earlier last year, which had detailed racial discrimination in the university admissions process, leading to a nation-wide wave of policy changes in terms of admissions, recruitment and hiring practices in institutions of higher education between 2023-2024. It is also unclear whether the hiring investigation conducted by the administration on faculty hiring practices in Psychology was a cause to this policy change. 

Important questions that have arisen and remain largely debated are, for example, if race is not a factor that should be considered, how are we to take into account the systematic historical disadvantages of minorities and how resources have and always have been unequally distributed? What would be a way to account for these factors, without jeopardizing the fairness of hiring and admissions? Simply put, if the majority race (caucasian ethnicities) in the United States have always had historical advantages in terms of resources and if such baseline resource distribution has been unequal in our society, are we to assign the same threshold of achievement to minority groups?

In communications within diversity steering committee meetings as well as within students, departmental staff and faculty, many have spoken in reaction to this change in policy. Regarding the changes to internal bias reporting tools by department VS central reporting through the university, there are notable pros and cons to both. It is crucial for the process to be as straightforward and efficient as possible to individuals who wish to report bias. Emotional stress that stems from encountering the incident itself should not be further amplified by a lengthy and time-consuming reporting process. Furthermore, it should be known that the process of wishing to report a bias takes courage and can be emotionally taxing; every reiteration and re-explanation of the circumstances related to bias can be seen as re-exposure and re-experiencing traumatic or stressful events. 

Previous departmental bias reporting tools hold the advantage of potentially expediting the processing speed and presenting an eventual solution to such incidents. On the other hand, centralized bias reporting may guarantee that each case can be officially investigated by a college-level designated team, but may also detract from processing efficiency. The processing time can take anywhere between a couple of weeks to several quarters depending on the severity of the issue. Another factor to consider is privacy issues: by reporting bias incidents on paper (via website tools or email communication), the "paper trail" can potentially be made public and anonymity is not guaranteed. Furthermore, when bias incidents arise, it is within the policy of many departments to bring complaints to the attention of the individuals in question so that a solution can be reached. However, in the case that anonymity cannot be guaranteed, this may become a deterrent to individuals wishing to report bias incidents, if they fear retaliation or other negative consequences.

As of early April, the Psychology department has been working to preserve a mechanism for reporting bias, a process that is ongoing and will be finalized after discussions with students, faculty and staff, and finalized will be approved by the university administration. Our DSC will be following up when this new process is updated. 

If you have questions, concerns, suggestions, or comments on this matter, please send them here.

-END-