Pitt referenced in House race report

The likelihood that the suggestions made by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’… The likelihood that the suggestions made by the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ Education Committee regarding how to address racial tensions on college campuses throughout the state will be implemented is questionable, according to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jess Stairs, R-Fayette County.

Recently, the committee released a report on race relations on Pennsylvania’s college and university campuses providing various suggestions to combat tensions, including reconvening the Pennsylvania Task Force on Intergroup Relations in Higher Education, creating a uniform system for filing race-related complaints and adding a more diverse selection of courses and faculty.

Stairs said he was unsure how likely the committee’s recommendations would be implemented.

“[The report] is just a study to present what we found,” Stairs said. “There’s nothing about this that has any finality.”

He added that none of the suggestions must be adopted. Rather, like any other law, a member of Congress must introduce a bill recommending any parts or all of the report and any other recommendations the congressperson may have to add in order for Congress to vote on it.

Currently, Stairs said that no representative has told him of any plan to introduce a bill regarding the report, but he added that it is early in the new Congressional session.

The report issued at the end of last year was the culmination of a series of hearings and meetings held between August 2001 and February 2002 at Pennsylvania State University, Pitt and the University of Pennsylvania. The report also included information sent to the House’s education committee by other colleges and universities throughout the state. The House unanimously passed Resolution 139 calling for the hearings to take place on April 4, 2001.

The committee chose those three schools to visit because of their location in various parts of the state, according to Stairs.

The report stated that students at Pitt and Penn State said that university officials had ignored threats directed toward minority students or that university officials participated in racial discrimination via racial profiling.

Student Government Board member La’Tasha Mayes, who was present at the hearing held in the William Pitt Union said, “It was very emotional that day because people were saying that racial profiling is real.”

Sometimes, she added, students are profiled and do not realize it until a later time. According to Mayes, police have questioned minority students while they were just hanging out. She said being questioned when an individual has done nothing wrong makes the students defensive.

Stairs said, while at the schools, representatives were trying to hear what university members had to say and not to investigate it.

“It wasn’t my role to be an investigator,” he said.

Officials from the schools were present, and it was their role to address problems, Stairs said.

Following a similar resolution in 1990, a task force convened to investigate possible solutions to race related issues on college and university campuses. Reconvening the task force is described as the committee’s “highest priority” in the report.

Stairs said he was unaware of why the task force had since ended.

The executive director of the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and the Secretary of Education, all of whom convened the task force previously, will help convene and coordinate the new task force if Congress approves its reorganization, according to the report.

The report suggested that the House or General Assembly pass a resolution to establish the task force early this year and to have it report back to them in November 2004.

Addressing intolerance at lower levels of education by involving members of the “basic education community” in the task force was another suggestion made in the report.

The committee also suggested in the report that the task force try to establish a “clear, concise and inclusive system of reporting actual incidents, alleged incidents and complaints of racial/ethnic discrimination, intimidation or violence.” To encourage universities to comply, the report suggested providing incentives.

Rep. Joe Roebuck, D-Philadelphia, a member of the committee, said the incentives did not necessarily include money.

To prevent racial or ethnic incidents, the report suggested that all students entering a university go through tolerance and acceptance orientation, and that universities provide additional monies to student groups to attend seminars dealing with racial and ethnic diversity, require all university employees to attend at least one program dealing racial and ethnic sensitivity, recruit a diverse faculty, and increase the graduation rate of minority students.

Universities should recruit faculty and students from diverse backgrounds to help teach tolerance, according to the House report. Also universities should increase the diversity in classes offered to address different racial and ethnic groups’ issues.

In a report released by Pitt’s Office of Affirmative Action in July 2001, 39 percent of 1994’s black freshmen class graduated by 2000, while 63 percent of 1994’s white freshmen graduated during that same time.

Mayes said that though diversity classes could help address different issues, the people who need to learn about these issues would probably not take those classes.

“People who need to be there would not be there. It would be like preaching to the choir,” she said.

All learning does not take place in the classroom, she said. She added that when a group sponsors an event, it should invite other groups to attend rather than only inviting the sponsoring groups’ members. Mingling between various groups could help deter tensions, she said.

The report also suggested requiring all potential teachers to pass at least one class dealing with racial or ethnic diversity before being certified.

The resolution focused on addressing the treatment of black students on predominantly white campuses. Following Sept. 11, 2001, the committee heard concerns from students of Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim descent. However, according to the report, the committee chose not to change their focus, but if incidents continue, the report suggested further investigation.