The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 45, No. 3 - 65

Are You My Ally

Receiving Parties' Reactions. A second
contributing factor evolving from previous
experiences included how individuals responded to students reporting bias-related incidents. Throughout the interviews, narratives
emerged that participants received messages
from receiving parties that bias-related incidents lacked severity. The participants regularly received messages that their experiences
were not severe enough for further action.
Some participants spoke to being told that they
needed to "get over it," while others spoke to
their interpretations of the messages. The staff
members who responded to bias-related reporting with these messages were from various
roles, including student staff, entry-level professionals, and mid-level professionals.
Participants also spoke to the messages
that suggested that bias-related incidents
would not change. Sam explained, "When it
comes to micro-racism or something like that,
um, I feel like that is something that is harder
to change, because it is more of an ideology."
She further described that this is why she does
not disclose to the university. She believes that
there is nothing that can be done to change
someone's ideology. Aviva similarly shared
that she received messages that minimized
her experience stating, "Nothing we can do, you
know? You should just like - sticks and stones
can break your bones but words will never
hurt." These messages, and self-doubt, served
to influence students to internalize their experiences and not report them to institutional officials in the future.

Perceptions of Institutional Support
Through the interviews with participants,
a commonality emerged that students had

doubts that the university was an ally for them.
Participants shared numerous roadblocks to
reporting bias-related incidents. Participants
indicated that they had negative experiences
disclosing to university employees in the past.
Sol explained that she disclosed to her Resident Director, but did not get the results that
she wanted. Based on this negative experience,
Sol did not think that she would disclose to
the Resident Director again in the future. Additionally, participants shared that their experiences being targeted by university employees
were a roadblock to disclosing. These experiences made them doubt the university as a
whole. Matt disclosed that he had been targeted by many university employees through his
colligate experience.
The point is that people come here to get an
education and feel safe. And not only do you
have a campus that people feel belittled by
teachers and students, you have a place that
people fear police, fear security. Their job
managers, they can't even get respect from
their job managers.
Lastly, students indicated that they viewed
the lack of established relationships with the
university as a roadblock. At the time of this
study, the site study created a new office to
respond to bias-related incident on campus.
The participants indicated that creating a
new office was not going to encourage them
to disclose in the future. They indicated that
they would need to have an established relationship with someone in the office for them
to feel safe disclosing. With these roadblocks,
students tended not to feel that the university
was supportive.

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 45, No. 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 45, No. 3