Students at Utah Valley University, a public institution in northern Utah, have been instructed to report “argumentative” peers to the school’s “behavior assessment team.”
Recently, the Dean’s Office at Utah Valley University instructed students to report peers who use “inappropriate language,” are “argumentative,” or who speak “loudly.” An anonymous faculty member, who provided the email to the online news site, the College Fix, claims that it came after a meeting in which an administrator told faculty to report students who made the campus feel “less inclusive.”
“Yes, even in a deep-red state at a university in one of the most conservative counties in America, faculty are afraid to speak their minds publicly if their opinions aren’t 100 percent politically correct,” the professor said, who asked to remain anonymous due to concerns over the possibility of professional repercussions for speaking to the media.
The professor says that the change in policy may be a response to a profanity-laced flyer that appeared on campus leading up to November’s presidential election. “I’m afraid that this Behavior Assessment Team is a bias response team in disguise,” the professor added.
The professor expressed concern that over the expanding role of the behavior assessment team, arguing that in previous years, the team was solely used to address students who posed a physical threat to campus or were a significant disruptor of the learning process.
“In the past, we have always been told that [the Behavioral Assessment Team] was for students who were a threat to physical safety…or for students who are disrupting the learning process. This year is the first time when we have been encouraged to report students for their words that may go against the inclusivity initiative or that may subjectively make someone ‘feel unsafe,'” he finished.
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