On February 1, a Saint Xavier Student Employee posted a racially insensitive picture using Instagram.
Many students believed that the aforementioned employee used Saint Xavier’s Instagram account to post a racially insensitive picture, but the student employee, used his or her own Instagram account, according to a unnamed Saint Xavier University student.
According to Saint Xavier University’s Vice President for Student Affairs, John Pelrine Jr., the Division of Students Affairs became aware of the offensive post early in the week following February 1.
The post included a picture of a card from the popular card game “Cards Against Humanity” and a caption according to multiple students. The particular statement on the card will not be identified. The message was racially offensive, but contained no explicit derogatory terms. Student Affairs was made aware of the racially offensive post by the Department of Residence Life, where students reported the offensive post, according to Pelrine.
Pelrine also said that the reaction to the post was not all negative because some students said they thought the post was simply not offensive. However, most of the students he spoke to did believe it was offensive.
The incident has spurred an effort by Saint Xavier University to improve its community into a more diverse and hospitable environment.
Specifically, Student Affairs will require that University Housing Staff will have additional cultural proficiency training, according to a letter from Pelrine that was released February 24, 2014.
The University Housing staff consist of both professional staff and student positions, such as Resident Assistants, that work in the residence halls.
The letter also stated that next academic year, all student leaders will have cultural proficiency and social media training. Saint Xavier Student leaders include: FOCUS orientation leaders, housing staff, Saint Xavier Council and student organization officers.
All Student Affairs staff will also be required to partake in similar training, according to the letter.
Pelrine said that Student Affairs employs approximately 200 student employees, which is about half of all students employed by the university, and they were working with other departments, such as Campus Ministry, to provide this training to other employees.
Other students that are not employed by Saint Xavier University will have the opportunity to participate in the cultural proficiency and social media training next fall, according to Pelrine.
The letter also addressed the role social media plays in our lives. It reads, “The use of social media makes all our communications a public affair in which nothing can be considered private.”
We have little to no control over who sees it, how it is interpreted or how long it is available.” It went to to say that statements made using social media can be taken in a multitude of ways, but social media offers it users very little ways to explain themselves or the context of their statement.
The Office of the Dean of Students will implement an “online bias reporting system” in April of this year, according to Pelrine’s letter. It will be used to “support students, foster a safe and welcoming environment, and inform future programs and service,” according to the same letter.
Pelrine described the program as an enhancement over the current incident reporting system that Saint Xavier University has.
David Rodrigues
News Editor
About Post Author
