Bias Incident Reports Spike At UW-Madison Post-Election

Sixteen incidents of bias were reported at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the week after the 2016 presidential election.

From Nov. 8 to Nov. 15, students reported being targeted for their ethnicity and political affiliation. One student reported being physically assaulted off campus while being told to go back his or her country, said Joshua Moon Johnson, chair of the university’s Bias Response Team.

“There definitely was a pattern (in the reports) around telling nonwhite people they don’t belong here, whether those were international students or that those were U.S. citizen students who happen to be of Asian descent or Latino descent,” Moon Johnson said.

One of the team’s priorities has been making sure UW-Madison students feel safe in the city.

“We actively share any kind of incident like (the assault off campus) with (the University of Wisconsin Police Department) so they can keep it on their radar as they’re moving around campus and around the surrounding community,” Moon Johnson said.

The Bias Response Team has also been having more active workshops teaching students how to intervene during a bias incident.

“We want people in our community to, if they see or hear anything like (bias), that they’re able to confront it, that they have the confidence and skills to be able to confront situations like (bias), and that’s really where we’re going to see change happen within communities,” Moon Johnson said.

Universities across the country have been seeing an increase in bias incidents post-election that target people because of their race or ethnicity, Moon Johnson said.

During the first six months of this year, the Bias Response Team received 66 incident reports, compared to just 18 during the fall semester of 2015.

Trump’s presidential campaign was riddled with racial comments some politicians and civil rights groups condemned.