Officials are seeking feedback on proposed changes to discrimination and campus protest policies, evaluated as part of an agreement reached with the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights to end investigations into alleged campus antisemitism and anti-Palestinian discrimination.
Officials on Thursday released drafts of four policy revisions and will solicit feedback about the proposed changes from GW students, faculty and staff until April 18, Provost Chris Bracey, Chief Financial Officer Bruno Fernandes Chief of Staff Scott Mory announced in an email to community members. Officials reviewed the policies as part of a voluntary resolution agreement the University entered with the Office for Civil Rights in January, concluding a pair of Title VI investigations into alleged antisemitism and anti-Palestinian discrimination on campus, which officials said did not find the University in violation of any law.
The release states that GW reviewed and proposed changes to four policies — the Equal Opportunity, Nondiscrimination, Anti-Harassment, and Non-Retaliation Policy, Demonstrations Policy, Barring People from Campus Policy and the Poster Policy — as part of the voluntary agreement officials entered with OCR in January.
“Recognizing that these policies impact every member of our community, we want to provide an opportunity for current students, faculty, and staff members to review proposed changes and provide any feedback they might have,” the release states.
Officials added a paragraph to the poster policy, stating that the University will apply the policy in a nondiscriminatory way.
The equal opportunity policy changes include the addition of shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics to the definition of national origin. The policy also adds that officials will determine what constitutes a hostile environment based on the “totality of circumstances.”
Individuals who believe they have been discriminated against can submit a report via an in-progress centralized discrimination and harassment reporting form, the revision states. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement has a bias incident form where community members can report potential cases of bias, including ones that don’t violate University policy. The Human Resource Management and Development department and ODECE would be responsible for the policy, the revisions stipulate.
Officials proposed changes to the process for appealing a barring notice under the barring policy, shifting the responsibility for appeals from the GW Police Department chief to the Vice President of Safety and Operations.
The draft demonstrations policy revision defines a demonstration as “any meeting, gathering, or activity by an individual or group to express views, disagreement, or support regarding a given subject.” Revisions also include that demonstrations can’t make “excessive noise” that disrupts University operations, and examples of nondisruptive protest activities. The Division for Student Affairs would co-own the policy with GWPD and help them prepare for upcoming demonstrations, according to the revisions.
The University will produce a summary of the feedback following the April deadline, before sharing the finalized versions of the altered policies with community members, the release states. Officials also said in the release that they will announce a “more permanent” procedure for engaging community members about the development of new policies or revisions to current ones.
Officials will work with the Faculty Senate, the Student Government Association and the Staff Council to finalize the procedure for policy changes and additions, the release states.
The release comes less than a week after the Department of Justice antisemitism task force announced it would visit GW and nine other universities that they said experienced “antisemitic incidents” since the onset of the war in Gaza.
The Office for Civil Rights began investigating a pair of lawsuits against the University in spring 2023, alleging antisemitism and anti-Palestinian discrimination from faculty and staff.
StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group, filed a Title VI complaint in January 2023, accusing Lara Sheehi, a former assistant professor of clinical psychology, of creating a “hostile environment” for Jewish and Israeli students in her Diversity I course in fall 2022. The complaint alleged that faculty and administrators “retaliated” against students who raised concerns about Sheehi’s conduct and the environment she created in the classroom with disciplinary proceedings.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits institutions or programs that receive federal assistance from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may lose federal funding, according to the guidance issued by the Office for Civil Rights on Feb. 14.
GW hired Crowell & Moring law firm to investigate the complaint and found “no evidence” of discriminatory conduct, a month before OCR launched its own investigation. Sheehi left GW in December 2023 to teach at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, according to her LinkedIn.
Palestine Legal — a pro-Palestinian legal group — filed its complaint in February 2023, accusing the University of discriminating against Palestinian students by denying them access to mental health services in 2021, falsely accusing Students for Justice in Palestine and its president of committing crimes and holding “months-long” disciplinary hearings for conduct violations other students claimed responsibility for.
As part of the agreement reached with OCR, GW also committed to expanding complaint records related to national origin, conducting a climate survey and implementing additional trainings on discrimination and harassment for faculty, staff and students, according to officials’ Jan. 27 statement. The University also agreed to “correct” records relating to actions taken involving several students, but did not specify what actions and how the University plans to correct them.
