Hate crime policy grows

September 11th, 2009 | By Mando Montaño | Section: News

The two largest student interest groups on campus, No Limits Project (NLP) and SGA have started a discussion and broken ground on a new hate crime response policy. NLP, which was founded last semester, generated support throughout the year through persistent activism. While both groups have their own projects, the two have already begun collaborating on common ground.

“There is a hate crimes response policy in the works right now that will soon be released to the campus,” said Virginia Andersen ’10, a NLP member who met with SGA President Harry Krejsa.“We want to make sure that students can give their commentary and that it gets pushed through.”
Andersen hopes to see the response policy include a preventative measure against hate crimes and include student input. Krejsa also cited the need for a new policy that would encourage a campus-wide discussion after a hate crime is committed on campus.

“[There is] a need for education after a hate crime, and educational provisions that will also serve as preventative measures,” Krejsa said. “Elena Bernal is really committed to getting a good deal of student input on the hate response policy, but she’s also really committed on making a community device.”

Krejsa believes that by restructuring the College Hearing Board to allow more student involvement and establishing records of past cases, students can make decisions based on precedent.

“We’re trying to make the students on College Hearing board more empowered and we’re trying to make the procedures on both disciplinary boards more transparent.” Krejsa said.

One of the primary goals of NLP, along with the creation of a hate crime policy, this semester is the re-establishment of need-blind admissions for international students that existed up until three years ago, and to add a guarantee to meet the full financial need of international students.

“The current policy allows international students to be rejected because of financial considerations, and it’s kind of unfair,” Andersen said. ”When you’re a student, you’re entering a stage of adulthood, and you should be able to decide if you want to go into debt.”

As well as establishing need-blind admissions, NLP also wants a revision of the current emissions reduction at the college and create an in-house mental health service. Krejsa is eager to add two full time mental health workers to the college.

“[The creation of an in-house mental health service] has been on top of student demand for sometime,” Krejsa said. “We’ll be recruiting several students to help with the search.”

Andersen and Krejsa want both groups to continue working with each other beyond the hate crime response policy.

“We’re both in contact with each other,” Krejsa said. “We’re both committed to moving past the conflict last year and are committed to maintaining a productive relationship.”