University of Utah: Two racially-motivated incidents have taken place on campus

SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah says enough is enough.

In the first couple weeks of fall classes, university officials say there were two racially-motivated incidents on campus. One happened the first week of school when a professor was threatened and verbally attacked with racial slurs. In the second week, a student yelled racial slurs while in campus housing.

Because of those two incidents, and four last year, University of Utah administrators released a statement saying this behavior is unacceptable and are changing some of its policies in dealing with cases like these.

One, the University is strengthening its code of conduct for visitors and fans.

Two, consequences are being escalated by having police look into these cases to prepare charges to the District Attorney’s Office for a possible hate crime.

And in a third move, the University is compiling every single incident and putting them onto a website for people to see.

Administrators feel that will help raise awareness of the issue.

“We know that this is a societal problem,” said Rebecca Walsh, associate director of communications at the University of Utah. “We know that these happen, and they happen on our campus, and when they do happen on our campus, we want to call them out as quickly as possible and a statement of support for the members of the community who have been impacted by it. And also alert our campus to what we’re doing to either find the perpetrators or provide support to the people who were victimized and how we’re moving forward.”

The University says when these incidents are reported, there are three things they will immediately do: communicate, provide support, and investigate it as a crime.

Administrators feel the campus should be a safe place for students, professors, staff, and visitors to come to.

Anybody who verbally attacks others with racial or bias slurs, or anything along those lines, will face consequences.