Associate dean encourages action, dialogue, reaction

SAY IT LOUD | Part 3 of 3

While in college, Pam Freeman remembered having a French teacher who “couldn’t stand Germans and was very vocal about it.”

Years later, Freeman, as the associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs, she said she feels she can do something about it.

Freeman is also chair of the IU Commission of Multicultural Understanding, a mostly student-run organization, in 1982 as what she calls an “educational task force” seeking to address student issues with discrimination.

The commission examines reports of discrimination made to “incidence teams” within the anti-harassment office and develops ways to deal with the reports in an insightful and educational way.

For example, when the events of Sept. 11 occurred, there was an increase in Muslim student harassment reports to the incidence teams. Freeman said the commission responded by producing a documentary examining what it means to be Muslim in America, which then opened up a dialogue concerning race relations.

On other occasions, Freeman said the commission has organized freeze mobs in which students wearing culturally informative T-shirts froze in place at random times so people would read them. All of this, she said, has fostered room for such dialogue to take place.

“Dialogue is vitally important to change,” Freeman said. “If people can’t open up in dialogue, there is no sense of human understanding to exist.”

Freeman recognizes her own differences as a German woman in America.

“I know what gender discrimination is like,” she said. “But I’m not usually a target of other kinds of discrimination. I’ve seen enough from people who report to the teams and can decide to help generate a response.”

For Freeman, generating a response means knowing where discrimination exists in the first place, hence the importance of incidence teams. The incidence teams help students cope with discriminatory situations through personal counsel and, if it’s a violation of law, will seek to resolve a situation legally. They have a rather high success rate.

Reports have been used along with the commission initiatives in various classroom settings to raise awareness of discrimination and have been used in on-the-street theatrical scenarios.

But Freeman is still worried. Seemingly aligned with the current state of the nation, reports to teams have declined, she said.

“Despite our efforts, I still feel many people don’t know they have an option,” she said. “I think people are either used to bad treatment, embarrassed, afraid or numb to discrimination altogether.”

Freeman said “being reactive in a proactive way” is the key to acknowledging social response to discrimination.

“It takes one person to speak out against injustice,” she said. “Discrimination is obviously an issue here in Bloomington, too. If it’s here, you know it must be everywhere. Just look in your own backyard.”