Fargo Forum
March 8, 2003

MSUM group debates racism
By Mike Nowatzki mnowatzki@forumcomm.com

  Amid swirling rumors of hate crimes and harassment on campus, an anti-racism group Friday at Minnesota State University Moorhead debated its role in handling complaints from students.
  About 15 members of Training Our Campuses Against Racism (TOCAR) met to discuss their progress in the past year through student and faculty training sessions.
  The discussion about hate crimes was sparked by an editorial in the school newspaper, The Advocate, which claimed a number of students of "diverse backgrounds" were victims of hate crimes and planned not to return to MSUM in the fall.
  Campus security director Michael Pehler said a few incidents have been reported in the past several weeks, but they haven't been classified as hate crimes.
  In one instance, someone wrote "Jew" on an erasable marker board hanging on a dorm-room door, he said.
  Other incidents were more sexual in nature, including a derogatory term for female genitalia written on a white board and a painting of male genitalia on the entrance of a dormitory, he said.
  "They really, as far as we look at it, didn't fall into the category of being directed toward an individual or group," he said.
  No arrests have been made in the vandalism cases, he said.
  TOCAR member and admissions counselor Veronica Michael said some students told her they're leaving MSUM because their complaints weren't addressed by the university.
  "What I hear from the students is it's all rhetoric," she said, declining to comment on how many students planned to leave.
  TOCAR co-chairwoman Phyllis May-Machunda said students "don't want to spend their youth teaching this institution what it needs to learn to be a safe environment."
  The problem is no aggrieved students have come forward, said Doug Hamilton, executive director of university advancement.
  "We would love to discuss this," he said. "It is certainly counter to state policy, federal policy - any reasonable reflection on how we treat each other."
  But Abner Arauza, associate director of student support services and multicultural affairs, said some students don't feel comfortable going directly to the top. In those cases, he suggested TOCAR members could serve as a "buffer and conduit" to get students the help they need.
  Other members questioned whether that fits the role of TOCAR, a collaborative between MSUM, North Dakota State University, Concordia College and Northwest Technical College designed to combat institutional racism.
  Hamilton noted that MSUM President Roland Barden has established a task force aimed specifically at improving diversity on campus, and that MSUM also has taken the lead in the TOCAR collaborative.
  "This campus has a decades-old tradition of trying to be more reflective and caring of people who don't enjoy the majority culture," he said.