University of Rochester President Joel Seligman is responding to an interim report issued about race and diversity on campus.
You can read his full response here.
The report and the response comes after protests at the U of R last November, with dozens of students gathering to complain about racism they feel is occurring on a regular basis.
The students were upset about what they feel is a less than welcoming campus for people of color; One of the problems they singled out was the racially charged posts made on the social media app Yik Yak.
The interim report from the Commission on Race and Diversity recommending blocking that app to signal strong support for U of R students.
In his response to the commission’s report, President Joel Seligman said he would support several steps to help eliminate racist communications from YikYak, but he won’t support a ban saying that it would not be effective and would reduce the university’s ability to hold individuals accountable for hateful messages.
Seligman did accept several of the commission’s initial recommendations including creating a bias-related incident executive team, and helping create a campaign to address racism on campus.
You can read the commission's report here.http://www.rochester.edu/president/commission-on-race-and-diversity/Interim-Report.pdf
