On Wednesday, February 11, the University’s Public Safety Team responded to an incident of anti-Asian harassment on our campus by a non-affiliate who gained access to campus. The non-affiliate was handing out anti-Asian materials and verbally harassed two members of our community on Revson Plaza. Public Safety intervened and de-escalated the situation. The non-affiliate was escorted off campus and will be restricted from returning. Our two affiliates were provided support and additional resources.
As the University has stated previously, incidents of harassment targeting members of our community based on their identity are deeply disturbing, unacceptable and antithetical to our values. The University understands the negative and concerning impact these types of bias incidents can have on the individuals targeted, but also more broadly on our community, particularly at a time when bias incidents are on the rise in our city and nationwide.
We want to remind students, faculty, and staff of the support available to them, including counseling and pastoral care, and our public safety resources. We should also always be aware of our surroundings as we engage in daily activities, and we encourage all our community members to report these types of incidents to Public Safety so they can provide appropriate support and refer incidents to local law enforcement for further investigation, as appropriate.
Additionally, part of keeping our campus community safe includes sharing timely public safety information. When incidents, such as this most recent one, do not meet the criteria for timely warning notifications under the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act, to the extent we can identify who in our community has been affected, the University always reaches out to offer support and resources to those affected. When incidents do meet criteria for timely warning notifications (called Clery Crime Alerts), the University emails our campus community when Clery Act crimes are alleged to have occurred in Columbia’s Clery-Reportable Geography, and when those crimes pose a continuing or significant danger to the campus community. Alerts also posted to the Public Safety website.
