By Celina Daigle
On September 30, 2021, the UConn Division of Public Safety Clery Annual Security and Fire Safety Report was released to the public.
The report identifies any data pertaining to crimes committed on campus in a spreadsheet of the offenses that occured on campus property, on on-campus student housing facilities, on non-campus property, and on public property during the 2020-2021 academic school year. This data is then compared to the two preceding academic years.
Some offenses saw a large decrease over the last few years, including rape. In 2018, UConn had a total of 44 reports of rape commited on UConn property. However in 2020, only 11 cases were reported. Arrests due to drug abuse violations also had a remarkable decrease in offenses committed from 2018 to 2020. In 2018, 232 arrests were made, in 2019, 46 arrests were made, and in 2020, only 10 arrests were made due to drug abuse violations.
Associate Vice President and Dean of Students Eleanor JB Daughtery and Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Franklin Tuitt summarized the findings of the bias reports, and have come to the conclusion that they must make a call to action.
According to Daugherty and Tuitt’s summary of offenses on campus, the 2020-2021 academic year had 42 biases reported against race, 23 biases reported against ethnicity, 14 biases against religion, and 10 against gender and gender expression, to name a few of the many categories.
To combat these actions from our community, UConn will be creating a Bias Action Group which will consist of students and staff who will meet each semester and review any bias data, trends, and concerns the student body and staff may have about the issue of the varied offenses. As stated in Dr. Daughtery’s email regarding the biases, her and Dr. Tuitt are looking for individuals who share an interest and are committed to aiding in the understanding, responding and educating of the surrounding community on various issues related to the bias reports presented in the Clery Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.
Anyone interested in joining can email dos@uconn.edu with the subject line, “Bias Action Group.” If students and staff work together and make the most out of the Bias Action Group, and the husky community spreads the word regarding inclusion, it’s possible that the numbers reported on the Clery Report can be even lower in the coming years.
UConn is committed to making on and off campus locations surrounding the campus a safe, healthy, and happy environment where individuals feel free to express themselves without experiencing fear or threats towards their race, religion, gender, gender expression, appearance, socioeconomic standing and more.