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St. Cloud State University
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Commentary
Affirmative Action office needs MnSCU’s guidance
Published:
Thursday, October 10, 2002
In the event of discrimination, SCSU students and faculty have several options. The first is to go through the Affirmative Action office.
After filing a complaint with the Affirmative Action office, the complaints must qualify as a 1B1 case which means it has to be a proven instance of discrimination. The complaints go through the department first. If it cannot be solved within the department, either the person filing the complaint or someone from the department passes the complaint to the lead investigator in the Affirmative Action office.
If the case is not proven a discrimination case, it is dropped. If it can be proven discrimination took place, the parties involved begin and informal process of meetings, training, counseling or mediation. In the formal process both parties are interviewed and the investigation continues.If the policy was violated, disciplinary action may be taken.
From Dec. 1 through June 30 there were eight complaints filed and all but three were filed without formal discipline.
Despite the fact that SCSU, like other universities in the MnSCU system, has this Affirmative Action office, this summer two discrimination cases were settled out of court and without the utilization of the on campus Affirmative Action resources available.
Part of the problem with the Affirmative Action program is that MnSCU has not, to our knowledge, come up with a formal way of evaluating it. Without a formal way of evaluating the process there is no way SCSU Affirmative Action officers can know if the processes are really working.
Before the program can be effective MnSCU needs to set a more defined standard for Minnesota colleges and universities to evaluate the sucess of their programs. MnSCU should not wait for its member institutions to do their work for them, as is happening now, with SCSU.
Kudos to the SCSU administration for taking that first stepby trying to come up with set guidelines.
