On Sunday evening, representatives from several campus groups met to discuss a proposal for a ‘nonviolence week’ later on in the semester. Hate Free Georgetown, an event being organized by Joshua Goode (COL ’10) and Lauren Cucarola (COL ’10) is an attempt to bring together different social groups and campus activities that would normally be separated in an effort to promote peace in the recently hostile Georgetown community.

At the beginning of the meeting, Goode outlined the need for such a week. He cited the many bias-related incidents Georgetown has seen in the past year or so, including the several bias-related incidents which took place at the beginning of the year, prompting the vigil shown at left.

Goode then described the ideas that had already been discussed as examples for events that might be held during the week. These ideas included a big lawn game day, dorm competitions, a barbeque, and a performance festival featuring as many campus performing arts groups as possible where students express the importance of nonviolence in an artistic way.

“The only way it’s really going to work is if we have this broad coalition,” Goode said, adding that the cultural and sports groups at Georgetown have sometimes been difficult to reach out to.

“The biggest way to stop violence is if you know the people around you,” Goode said. “And that’s only going to happen if we get these groups together. Otherwise we’re going to have pockets of people who aren’t intermingling.”

Photo by Kara Brandeisky

Students at the November 2 anti-hate crime vigil

Three American University students are producing a short video about the several bias-related incidents that took place on Georgetown’s campus this semester. Though they are producing the film for a class, their main intention is to post it on the website run by “Not in Our Town,” a group that responds to hate crimes across the country.

Ashley Dejean said that she, Marley Cook, and Jasmine Rao spent three days at Georgetown filming the scene of the crimes and interviews with several students and faculty who were involved with the response to the incidents, including Carter Lavin (SFS ‘10), Ellen Greer (COL ‘11), Adam Talbot (COL ‘12), and LGBTQ Center Director Sivagami Subbaraman. The film will run between three and five minutes.

Joseph Graumann (SFS ‘11), left, and Carlos Leon (COL ‘10)

In this week’s issue, the Voice spoke with co-Presidents of GU Pride Joseph Graumann (SFS ‘11) and Carlos Leon (COL ‘10) about their organization, the recent hate crimes on campus and the challenges facing the LGBTQ community.  This is the extended transcript of our interview with them.

The Voice: How did you get involved in GU Pride?

Joseph: Well, I came out on campus during the Out for Change campaign. It was a lot of the issues at the time and the struggle that went on for recognition of the LGBTQ community really made me look inside myself, and, I mean as corny as it sounds, my so-called “brothers and sisters” are off fighting the good fight and I am not even secure enough to tell my friends.

Ever since then, I realized that there is work to be done. And my good friend Ellen, who was already involved with the Out for Change campaign, Ellen Greer, she really encouraged me to be involved in the community and I started out as historian, when there was an opening in the beginning of my sophomore year [2008] and then sophomore year, December, they had elections for co-chair and I ran and got elected.

The Voice: What is one thing you wish to change about GU Pride?

Joseph: I would like to see GU Pride become a more welcoming and open place for people who are in the process of coming out or who feel like they are unable to find a safe place with other aspects of the community that administers to LGBTQ people.

The Voice: The best thing about GU Pride?

Joseph: What I like about GU Pride is that although not everybody who is affiliated with the organization shows up to everything, we have a pretty good sense of comradery and we’ve developed a very good sense of community on campus, which is really important, given the nature of our identities, it’s really hard to do that, it’s hard to forge a cohesive and diverse, both racially [and] socio-economically, group on campus.

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Georgetown students and administrators conducted a panel in the ICC Auditorium about Georgetown’s response to hate crimes last Thursday.

Several administrators attended the panel, included Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson and Vice President for University Safety Rocco DelMonaco. While there was little information about the crimes, the forum was full of information about safety at Georgetown.

DEFINING HATE CRIMES: The moderator pressed Olson to explain why Public Safety Alerts typically say “bias-related incident” instead of “hate crime.” Olson said Georgetown uses a legalistic definition of hate crime that only certain crimes qualify under.

When GUSA Speaker Adam Talbot (COL ‘12) asked Olson about the GUSA Senate’s bill to change the way hate crimes are treated under the Student Code of Conduct, Olson said the Office of Student Conduct would consider the legislation, but declined to say whether it would be adopted.

STUDENT PATROLS: In meetings after the hate crimes, GU Pride and other students have talked about organizing a group of students patrol campus at night, presumably to prevent hate crimes. DelMonaco pointed students towards other student-run safety groups like the Students Safety Advisory Board and APO’s shuttle service; Olson seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea.

“We need to make sure that if we’re putting students out in a patrol function, that those students are going to be safe,” Olson said.

More about security cameras on campus, arming DPS and Solidarity’s spat with Rocco after the jump!

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A student was verbally accosted for his perceived sexual orientation by four unknown men at 12:30 Monday morning, according to a Public Safety Alert just sent to students. The incident occurred near 37th and Prospect:

On Monday, November 9, 2009 at 12:30 a.m., a student reported to DPS that while walking near the intersection of 37th and Prospect Streets, a group of four unknown males approached the student and engaged in verbal harassment, making comments regarding the student’s perceived sexual orientation. No physical contact occurred between the complainant and the suspects.

Two of the suspects are described as white men, 6 feet tall, with curly dark hair. One is described as skinny, while the other is described as fat.

Public Safety Alert after the jump

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GUSA will not stand for these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane campus

GUSA FUND: The big news from this week’s meeting was that the Senate passed the long-debated GUSA Fund, which will allow them to fund clubs directly. For more information, check out Vox’s post from earlier this morning.

HATE CRIMES: GUSA passed a revised version of Senator Josh Mogil’s (SFS ’11—Off Campus) changes to the Student Code of Conduct regarding hate crimes on a vote of 16 to two, with one abstention.

The new version of the resolution adds Hate-Crimes as a Category C violation, but keeps bias as a “parameter” for other violations that are not “criminal acts of hate,” but are motivated by the aggravating factor of bias.

Mogil said he decided to leave in the section on “bias-related incidents” after speaking with Vice President of Student Affairs Todd Olson about the resolution.

Senator Nick Troiano (COL ’11—Village A, A-D) still had doubts about the necessity of the resolution.

“There’s no practical difference between someone who’s adjudicated based on a criminal act that would otherwise fall under Category C violations and those that would now fall under the sub-category,” Troiano said.

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The Georgetown Solidarity Committee just released an open letter to University President John DeGioia demanding better treatment of and higher salaries for Department of Public Safety officers.

The letter says that the recent hate crimes have revealed “a pervasive, historically rooted, and dangerous climate on campus” which is due in large part to “neglecting the well-being” of DPS officers.

The letter says that the DPS officers are paid roughly three dollars less than other campus security officers at other D.C. schools and the department is consequently habitually understaffed.  Solidarity is insisting on a four dollar raise over the next three years for current officers and “a fair staffing policy.”

According to the letter:

DPS Officers are the lowest-paid police in Washington, D.C. … SafeRides, escort services, and other safety systems are frequently understaffed and unable to provide sufficient services. These issues hinder the retention of employees and undervalue long-term officers with the experiential knowledge of Georgetown, which is essential to the trust needed between DPS and the community. This “revolving door” leaves the Georgetown community vulnerable to future incident …

Even in hard economic times, we must not compromise the respect, security and well-being of those charged with keeping us safe.

In a recent interview with WTOP, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier speculated that the of recent hate crimes in Georgetown may have been motivated by the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage.

Lanier, who recently told WTOP that MPD is classifying the assaults as hate crimes, was asked on WTOP’s Ask the Chief Program whether it was possible that the issue of same-sex marriage could have sparked the attack.  She responded:

“Whenever there’s an issue that’s getting a lot of attention, there may be something that’s sparking these assaults. Certainly that’s something we are looking at.”

WTOP notes that there have been 31 hate crimes based on sexual orientation in D.C. during 2009.

Lanier said MPD has put an investigator on the case, and that the Gay Liaison Unit is assisting with the investigation.  She was also asked whether it’s possible that the two assaults are related, and responded that “we don’t have anything to connect the two incidents as of right now.”

Students concerned by the recent anti-gay hate crimes will have the chance to meet with University officials to discuss what can be done to improve student safety today at 8 p.m. in the ICC Auditorium.  In preparation for the meeting, a group of students held a discussion yesterday to decide what topics to bring up at the meeting.

After much debate and discussion, the students decided on a set of goals to bring up at today’s meeting, namely better communication on- and off-campus among appropriate safety organizations, a more tolerant culture, better pay and conditions for Department of Public Safety officers, changing the student conduct code to make hate crimes a Type C violation, and protecting students by offering self defense classes and a possible volunteer task force to help walk students home on late nights.

The issues of better pay for DPS officers and changing the Student Code of Conduct especially struck a cord, and many said that having the lowest paid campus officers in the city is creating a “revolving door” situation, where the officers come to Georgetown for paid training and then leave for other universities.

As for the changing of the Student Code of Conduct, there was also a consensus that hate crimes need to be treated with as much seriousness as assault, sexual assault, and theft.