College administrations react to hate crimes, hate speech, and other high-profile incidents of bias by focusing mainly on repairing their institution’s reputation, two new studies conclude.
The administrations’ responses generally paper over underlying prejudices in the campus culture, leaving the victims at risk of further harm in the future, argue the researchers, who presented the studies’ findings on Monday in Chicago, at the annual conference of the American Educational Research Association.
“College presidents are willing to address the racist but rarely the racism,” says a paper summarizing one of the studies, based on a rhetorical analysis of presidents’ statements in response to bias incidents.