After the second hate crime in as many months was reported last week, University President John J. DeGioia announced last night that he will speak in an open forum tomorrow to address discrimination on campus.
The announcement was made less than one week after the university sent out a public safety alert about an alleged hate crime early on Oct. 14, in which a student was allegedly called homophobic slurs and shoved against Healy Hall.
DeGioia sent an e-mail to students, faculty and staff last night to announce an open meeting tomorrow in the Intercultural Center Auditorium.
DeGioia and Tommaso Astarita, a professor in the history department, also met with four students who have been working for LGBTQ issues yesterday to discuss what would be covered at the forum.
The announcement comes less than three weeks after numerous students and faculty members flooded DeGioia’s e-mail inbox, calling for him to take part in an open forum on Oct. 10. DeGioia declined the request, but met privately with several GU Pride members on Oct. 9.
Scott Chessare (COL ’10), GU Pride co-president, sent an e-mail to the GU Pride members, administrators and campus media shortly after the broadcast alert detailing the most recent hate crime was sent out on Thursday night, saying that the announcement was delayed. The crime came five weeks after another student was hospitalized after being allegedly assaulted by two men after being called homophobic slurs. Philip Cooney (MSB ’10) was arrested late last month in conjunction with the incident and charged with assault with a hate/bias specification.
“If it was not already, the administration should be ashamed of itself,” the e-mail said.
University spokesperson Julie Bataille said the five-day notification delay was to allow the victim to file a formal report with more detailed information with the Department of Public Safety, which he has not done.
“Given that the individual chose not to do [so] by Thursday, university officials made a decision that it was still important to let the campus community know that something had taken place, especially in order to remind students and others to be mindful of their surroundings and vigilant about their personal safety,” Bataille said. She added the university wanted to send the notification before the weekend.
Chessare said in an interview that his e-mail was “appropriate.”
“It reflected the sense of urgency we had at the time,” he said. “It didn’t mean that [the administration] had to send out an e-mail right after [it] happened, but they should have notified Bill [McCoy, coordinator of LGBTQ community resources].”
Chessare said that he was concerned with what he considered a lack of transparency that he said that he and other LGBTQ representatives had been promised during recent meetings with administrators.
“The message here is that the university did not have transparency we were promised,” Chessare said. He said that he was frustrated that the university was taking “slow steps.”
McCoy said that the response reflected a lack of importance placed on such incidents within the Georgetown community.
“I don’t necessarily feel like the issue is `danger,’ but there is an importance in having the knowledge of what your environment really looks like,” McCoy said. “I believe it is important for us, as an institution, to educate our students as to what our reality is. If there is information that adds to the understanding of Georgetown as a culture, we should assure that the Georgetown community has a clear picture of that culture.”
Department of Public Safety Director Darryl Harrison said he did not feel students were placed in any danger by the time lapse between the incident and response.
Harrison said he was not made aware of the incident until some days after it took place because he had been out of town.
“I would imagine it would take time to investigate the details,” he said.