Student safety in jeopardy? An introductory precursor

[By Melkorka Licea and Jo Sahlin]  

Evergreen President Les Purce responded almost immediately when posters went up around campus with the words, “everyone hates a snitch,” accompanied by the prominent image of a spiked baseball bat. The email response, titled “Threats and Intimidating Behavior,” stated regarding the fliers, “The implication is clear: if you report criminal behavior, you will be harmed in violent ways.”

Administrators, police, and students alike have recognized that both the posters and the reactions to them represent a greater issue and raise important questions for the campus community to address.

Do people feel safe? Why? More importantly, why not? What, if anything, are people doing to ensure that others feel safe?

TESCTalk, the Evergreen listserv discussion forum, has hosted a weeklong conversation about whether (or when) threatening behavior is justified, and specifically the ways in which this applies to reporting and dealing with criminal behavior and sexual assault.

During the coming week, the Cooper Point Journal will be looking into campus policies and laws that govern the handling of these cases when they are reported.

Les Purce has stated, “We have an ongoing process to protect the community that has been operating and working for many, many years." Evergreen Police Sergeant Tim Marron affirmed, "We run our police department by police best practices and that’s what we’ve been striving to do, especially for the past several years, to ensure that our standard operating procedures are in the same parameteres as the best police departments." We will be taking this opportunity to investigate precisely the procedures and protocols that both the administration and police services follow when dealing with dangerous and controversial issues at TESC.