Lafayette College has taken steps to resolve issues with the United States Department of Education regarding the college’s harassment and non-discrimination policies, according to an announcement from Ernest Jeffries, the vice president for inclusion.
The agreement follows a DOE investigation into anti-semitism that concluded in June.
Jeffries wrote in a campus-wide email on Jan. 28 that the college will “review its policies and procedures to ensure that they adequately address the Title VI prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, and national origin, including discrimination based on a student’s actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”
A 17-page document sent by Jeffries outlined Lafayette’s new policy covering discrimination policies and how to file a complaint with the college. It also includes the announcement of a new non-discrimination team, which will “coordinate the College’s compliance with federal, state, and local civil rights laws and ordinances,” according to the document.
Members of the non-discrimination team include Jeffries, Associate Director of Residence Life & Deputy Title IX Coordinator Terrence Haynes, Associate Vice President for Human Resources Alma Scott-Buczak and neuroscience professor Lisa Gabel. The four are managed by the director of institutional equity, a position that is currently vacant and held by Jeffries in an interim role.
The document highlights that supportive measures upon notice of discrimination or harassment will be “offered as appropriate and reasonably available.”
Jeffries deferred all comments to college spokesman Scott Morse.
The college also announced a mandatory training session for students, faculty and staff in a Jan. 10 update in the Lafayette Today. In the college’s agreement with the Department of Education, Lafayette would have to provide training to employees responsible for investigating reports of discrimination — college President Nicole Hurd wrote in a June campus-wide email that this would be completed by Dec. 17.
As of Wednesday, the link to complete the 45-minute training session is not available, despite the Lafayette Today update saying the training would be available by the end of January.
Morse said that the college ran into delays with creating a Spanish translation for the training and that the link will be posted next week.
The Lafayette Today post set a tentative deadline of March 14 for the session. Across the Lehigh Valley, Muhlenberg College — which also recently settled an agreement with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights — implemented a training program as part of the resolution.
“We have created training videos on our policies and procedures and host multiple open training sessions per year for our entire community on our policies and procedures,” Jennifer Storm, the director of institutional equity, compliance and Title IX at Muhlenberg College, wrote in an email.
Students approached by The Lafayette were largely unaware of or indifferent toward the announcement. Several students questioned the effectiveness of a training program for discrimination — multiple of whom declined to comment.
“I don’t think you’re going to change the mind of anybody that intends to have prejudicial beliefs from a training,” Juan Huerta ’28 said.
