Bias is a personal inclination or temperament based on unreasoned judgment or belief. Bias may be reflected in behavior implicitly (nonverbal) or explicitly (verbal or written) that can be threatening, harassing, intimidating, discriminatory, hostile, unwelcoming, exclusionary, demeaning, degrading, or derogatory and is based on a person’s real or perceived identity or group affiliation, including (but not limited to) race, age, disability status, gender, gender identity/expression, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status, or religion.
The Otis College Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT) addresses incidents of real or perceived bias targeting Otis College students, faculty, and staff. The fundamental role of the BIRT is to:
- Make appropriate referrals for response to bias incidents in a timely and restorative manner.
- Promote civility and respect.
- Educate the campus community about recognizing and reporting bias incidents.
The Bias Incident Response Team does not adjudicate conduct code violations, affirmative action issues, or issues of state or federal law. However, the BIRT can help individuals connect to resources in each of these areas for appropriate resolution. The BIRT’s main function is Case Management and works with campus partners who provide Individual Support. This entails:
- Reviewing bias incident reports and strategizing on a response as a team.
- If an incident report includes a violation of law or college policy, it will be put through the student conduct process (for students) or referred to Human Resources (for staff) or to the Provost’s office and Human Resources (for faculty). The BIRT will always yield to college-wide formal processes if there are specific violations and allow those processes to move to a formal resolution
- BIRT will always seek to balance the scale of response to scale of incident
- Including ad hoc members on the team as needed, based on the reported incident and community potentially impacted (e.g., LGBTQ+, Veterans, disabled people, people of color, etc.).
Depending on the nature and severity of the behavior, the associated bias, and impact, incidents will be addressed as appropriate through interventions such as: education, restorative practices, community dialogue, and formal processes through institutional offices (e.g., review, investigation, resolution).
Not every incident will be a violation of college policy or law, however all reported incidents will be reviewed for an appropriate response.
To read more about the Bias Incident Response Team, go to: https://www.otis.edu/birt
To report incidents of bias/discrimination, go to the following incident reporting site here: https://www.otis.edu/incident-reports.