Tool for Concerns About Inclusive Environment

 

 

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PROCEDURES FOR RESPONDING TO CONCERNS ABOUT INCLUSIVE ENVIRONMENT

DRAFT 1/19/24

Note: This response process is a living document that is expected to grow and evolve over time.

Overview/Rationale/Principles

This document outlines the proposed process that will be used to respond to disclosures of concerns about inclusive environment made using the departmental tool. The process was developed to be consistent with the principles in our departmental Commitment to Justice pledge. The main goal of the process is to facilitate communication to examine and change practices that cause or perpetuate cultural mistrust and inequity in our departmental community. In this document, the person disclosing a concern about inclusive environment will be referred to as the “discloser” and the person whose actions led to the concern will be referred to as the “named person”. 

• Individuals who use the disclosure tool may wonder whether members of the subcommittee are equipped to serve as mediators of restorative practice. All faculty members participate in monthly meetings in which we actively discuss topics related to diversity, equity, inclusivity, and social justice. In addition, faculty have invited guest speakers, including Jeff Cullen, Director of Student Conduct and Community Standards, to share their expertise about restorative practices with the faculty. Jeff, a trainer of trainers in restorative practices, has also agreed to serve as a resource if an issue cannot be resolved at the department level.
  
• While it is true that faculty are not experts in facilitating restorative practices, all faculty who are part of this subcommittee are eager to learn from the pilot launch of this program and look forward to improving the process in the years to come. Further, the below document has been thoughtfully devised based on known restorative action principles and spells out concrete steps that members of the subcommittee will take toward facilitating restorative action. Finally, the faculty will be making efforts to pursue additional training in restorative practices in the years to come. Our response process will use restorative practices in an effort to repair harms done to members of our community. Key goals are to ensure the discloser feels heard and that the named person understands the impact of their actions. In this way, the harm may be repaired while keeping all parties in the community. This is in contrast to traditional “punitive” models that exclude people from the community without providing them an opportunity to learn the consequences of their actions, thereby doing nothing to reduce future acts of bias.  
• From a restorative practices perspective, a person who has acted in a biased manner is not defined/judged as a “bad” person. The “mistake” is viewed as an act separate from the reported person. The named person will have an opportunity through this process to acknowledge mistakes in a safe space and learn from them. The named person will not be subject to punitive action by the department; rather, this process is an opportunity for named persons to learn about what behaviors may be causing harm.  
• The process will be informal and confidential. The rationale for this is to create a safe space in our department (rather than elevated to the level of OECR involvement) where people can be honest about bias they have experienced and about biases they have made toward others. Only “facilitators” will have information about interactions between involved parties. No personally identifying information will be provided to anyone else in the department, and no records (written or electronic) with personally identifying information will be maintained after the process is complete. The only records that will be kept are de-identified metrics of the types of bias reported, response process steps completed, and outcomes. We are committed as a faculty against taking punitive action toward any individual disclosing a concern about inclusive environment. Nonetheless, individuals who believe that punitive action was taken against them are encouraged to generate a new report. 
• A group of facilitators will be available to respond to disclosures of concerns about inclusive environment. Names of facilitators will be listed on the disclosure form. Both the discloser and named person can choose which 2 (minimum) facilitators they wish to work with.  
• There are several limitations to this process we should be mindful of.  

(1) Disclosers may request to remain anonymous to the named person, but not to the facilitators. A key goal of this process is to enhance safe, open, and honest communication around concerns about inclusive environment. Disclosers will meet with facilitators in a safe space for this purpose. While disclosers who remain anonymous to the named person are entitled to full support, they should be aware that the named person will not be contacted by the facilitators to avoid creating additional harm. 

(2) Any incident that falls under OECR’s domain is beyond the scope of this informal departmental process and will be referred to them. This will be clearly stated on the reporting form. 

(3) Efforts are being made by DISJ to build community in our department. Community building requires strengthening communication, trust, vulnerability, and commitment to one another through ongoing work. This takes time. We must acknowledge that willingness to engage in this proposed response to bias process may initially be limited due to lack of trust/willingness to be vulnerable. However, initiating this process is a concrete step toward community building that may lead to greater participation in the future.  

(4) This process cannot address harms that are rooted in societal/institutional problems. Only by changing society/institutions can those harms be addressed. We must be clear that our process can only address bias within our departmental space. It can, however, still provide a safe space for people who have experienced societal/institutional-based harms to be heard.  

(5) This process may lead to unexpected outcomes, and desired outcomes may not be achieved. For example, a discloser may not accept the apology of the named person. Alternatively, a named person may not acknowledge or agree that they have engaged in biased behavior. We will strive to be accepting of these outcomes. 

Proposed Process Steps

Note: Not all steps of the process may be used – disclosers can stop the process at any time they choose after meeting with facilitators. Thus, details of each process will be determined on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, during the pilot period, department “facilitators” may collaborate with members of the UMBC restorative practices team.

1. Facilitators will contact the discloser within 7 days. 

2. Individual meeting with discloser(s). If a group is disclosing a concern, the meeting may include all willing members of the group rather than individual meetings. Suggested facilitator questions from Restorative Practices resources: 

• What happened? 
• What did you think when you realized what happened? 
• What impact has this incident had on you and others? 
• What has been the hardest about this situation? 
• What do you think needs to happen to make things right?

During this meeting, the discloser can choose whether to remain anonymous to the named person or participate in a joint meeting with the named person and facilitators. Disclosers who wish to remain anonymous will benefit from discussing the issue in a safe space with the facilitators; the response process will end at this point. Disclosers who wish to meet with the named person and facilitators are consenting to enter a brave space in which challenging and healing conversations can take place, and the response process will continue as described below.  

3. Individual meeting with named person(s). Suggested facilitator questions from Restorative Practices resources: 

• What happened? 
• What were you thinking at the time? 
• What did you think when you realized what happened? 
• What impact has this incident had on you and others? 
• What do you think needs to happen to make things right? 

4. Joint meeting with all involved parties (reporting and reported persons)

Facilitated, with questions/discussion determined by involved parties in advance of the meeting, but working from a restorative practices framework. The discloser(s) and named person(s) may choose to have a support person involved in the meeting. 

Restorative practices advocate for an inclusive process in which those involved have a role in designing and making decisions about the process. For example, a discloser may only choose to engage in a meeting with facilitators and not meet with the named person. 

In these meetings, especially the joint meetings, participants will be encouraged to communicate using affective statements, one of the strongest informal restorative practices tools. Affective statement sentence structure: 

“I feel/am __(emotion)___ when/that you __(behavior)___. I value __(need)___. Would you/could you ___(request)__.” 

5. Aftercare follow-up with involved parties

Facilitators will follow up with involved parties to see if further support or resources is warranted. For example, we may refer involved parties to UMBC’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights (ECR; https://ecr.umbc.edu/), which has a number of resources related to anti-racism, LGBTQIA+ resources, health and wellness, and others. Further informal consultations with facilitators or other department members may be pursued as well.

Examples of how the process might work:

Hypothethical scenario #1 

Step 1: A graduate student discloses a race-based microaggression by their mentor using the tool. 

Step 2: The incident description is received by mediators (for the spring 2024 pilot, members of the workgroup for the Tool for Concerns About Inclusive Environment). The workgroup reaches out to the student within 7 days to schedule an in-person meeting. 

Step 3: An in-person meeting is held between the student and 2 mediators. The student describes what happened and how they felt when it occurred, what the hardest thing about the experience was, whether others were also affected, and anything else they wish to communicate about the incident. The student says they feel it’s important for their mentor to be made aware that they made a microaggression so that it won’t happen again to them or any other student in the future. While the student is concerned that meeting with the mentor may have adverse consequences (e.g. bias their mentor against them), they think the benefits outweigh the risk. The student states that their desired outcome is that the mentor acknowledge the microaggression, apologize for it, and commit to not causing harm in this way in the future.  

Step 4: The mediators contact the mentor to let them know a disclosure has been made and to request a confidential meeting between the mentor and mediators. The mentor is given an opportunity to select which mediators they wish to work with. The mentor selects their preferred mediators and, in the meeting, the mediators describe the disclosed incident. In answering the restorative questions, the mentor confirms that they made the microaggression and expresses regret. They state that they were unaware that the incident was a microaggression, that they didn’t understand that it could negatively impact someone, and they want to meet with the student to make amends. The mediators ask if the mentor would be willing to attend training/do readings about microaggressions to better educate themselves on the topic. The mentor agrees. 

Step 5: The mediators meet separately with the student and the mentor to plan the face-to-face meeting. They explain how affective statements can be used in conjunction with the restorative questions. The student and the mentor write out what they plan to say in the meeting about the incident, and how the harm should be addressed. 

Step 6:  An informal restorative circle is held with the student, mentor, and mediators. The student speaks first, using affective statements to describe how the microaggression made them feel and to request an apology and commitment to not acting in a biased manner in the future. The mentor responds using affective statements to describe their regret for harming the student and their commitment to learning more about microaggressions so that they won’t cause future harms. The student accepts the mentor’s apology conditionally. The mediators let both the student and the mentor know that they will check back in with each of them monthly. 

The only documentation that is kept of this incident is deidentified, including position of the reporter (graduate student), position of the reported person (faculty), nature of bias, dates of contact with each party, date of joint meeting, and outcome. 

Step 7: The mediators check in monthly with the student and mentor for as long as needed. Steps taken at this point will depend on progress.

Hypothetical scenario #2 

Step 1: A graduate student discloses a race-based microaggression by their mentor using the tool. The graduate student indicates they wish to remain confidential to the named person. 

Step 2: The incident description is received by mediators (for the spring 2024 pilot, members of the workgroup for the Tool for Concerns About Inclusive Environment). The workgroup reaches out to the student within 7 days to schedule an in-person meeting. 

Step 3: An in-person meeting is held between the student and 2 mediators. The student describes what happened and how they felt when it occurred, what the hardest thing about the experience was, whether others were also affected, and anything else they wish to communicate about the incident. The student is concerned that meeting with the mentor may have adverse consequences (e.g., bias their mentor against them), and chooses to not meet with the mentor to discuss the incident. The student states that their desired outcome is that the mentor be made aware that they committed a microaggression. However, the mediators let the student know that this is not possible because an anonymous report that the mentor cannot respond to or learn from has potential to cause additional harm. The mediators provide support to the student in this “safe space” meeting, and the response process ends at this step. The mediators let the student know that they are available to facilitate a joint meeting with the mentor at any point in the future if the student changes their mind and wishes to discuss the microaggression in a “brave space.”  

Step 4: The mediators check in monthly with the student for as long as needed and provide referrals for resources as needed. Steps taken at this point will depend on progress.

Hypothetical scenario #3 

Step 1: A graduate student discloses a race-based microaggression by their mentor using the tool. 

Step 2: The incident description is received by mediators (for the spring 2024 pilot, members of the workgroup for the Tool for Concerns About Inclusive Environment). The workgroup reaches out to the student within 7 days to schedule an in-person meeting. 

Step 3: An in-person meeting is held between the student and 2 mediators. The student describes what happened and how they felt when it occurred, what the hardest thing about the experience was, whether others were also affected, and anything else they wish to communicate about the incident. The student says they feel it’s important for their mentor to be made aware that they made a microaggression so that it won’t happen again to them or any other student in the future. While the student is concerned that meeting with the mentor may have adverse consequences (e.g. bias their mentor against them), they think the benefits outweigh the risk. The student states that their desired outcome is that the mentor acknowledge the microaggression, apologize for it, and commit to not causing harm in this way in the future.  

Step 4: The mediators contact the mentor to let them know a disclosure has been made and to request a confidential meeting between the mentor and mediators. The mentor is given an opportunity to select which mediators they wish to work with. The mentor selects their preferred mediators and, in the meeting, the mediators describe the disclosed incident. In answering the restorative questions, the mentor has a completely different perception of the interaction with the student and does not agree that they made a microaggression. The mentor agrees to meet with the student to discuss the disclosed incident. 

Step 5: The mediators meet separately with the student and the mentor to plan the face-to-face meeting. They explain how affective statements can be used in conjunction with the restorative questions. The student and the mentor write out what they plan to say in the meeting about the incident, and how the harm should be addressed. 

Step 6:  An informal restorative circle is held with the student, mentor, and mediators. The student speaks first, using affective statements to describe how the microaggression made them feel and to request an apology and commitment to not acting in a biased manner in the future. The mentor describes how their recollection of the situation differs and states that while they are sorry the student feels harmed, they think the situation is a miscommunication rather than a microaggression. The student and mentor continue to express their feelings about experiencing a microaggression and having their words misinterpreted as a microaggression, respectively. They cannot reconcile their two accounts of the event. The facilitators ask each of them how they feel about agreeing to disagree so that they can continue to work together. The student states that despite the mentor’s statements that no harm was meant by their words, they still feel harmed and want an apology and assurances that it won’t happen again. The mentor reiterates that they are sorry there was a miscommunication but doesn’t agree it was a microaggression.  

Step 7: At this point, the mediators plan future individual meetings with the student and mentor to explore what each person needs to feel comfortable so they can continue to work together. At this point, the student is considering two options: (1) finding another mentor to work with or (2) accepting that the perceptions of the event differed, that the mentor did not intend to cause harm, and that the mentor was willing to talk openly about the situation. Alternatively, the student/discloser has the option to report the incident to OEI or the chair. Once that occurs, the departmental bias tool committee will no longer be involved in or have any input into the process used to resolve the incident. The mediators facilitate a conversation with the student about the student’s feelings about the options and what would happen as a result of each action. At this point the mediators will take whatever supportive action is needed depending on the student’s decision. This could involve facilitating another joint conversation with student and mentor, giving the student more time to process what has happened, and facilitating future individual meetings with the student. This would likely also involve facilitating an individual meeting with the mentor to discuss how they feel about not being able to come to agreement with the student about what happened.  

Step 8: Once the student makes a decision, the mediators check in monthly (or more frequently if requested) with the student and mentor for as long as needed. Steps taken at this point will depend on progress.