Faculty Safety Guidelines

I. POLICY STATEMENT.

This guide is designed to assist Occidental College faculty, staff, and administrators in developing strategies to protect academic freedom that may come under threat from individuals or groups outside the College. Through this guide, and other means, the College seeks to protect faculty against the intimidation or violence that the expression of unpopular ideas and controversial research sometimes generates.

II. APPLICABILITY.

This guide applies to all faculty, staff, and administrators when preparing for or responding to attacks, threats, or targeting by outside groups or individuals involving issues of academic freedom.

III. POLICY.

This guide is designed to assist Occidental College faculty, staff, and administrators in developing strategies to protect academic freedom that may come under threat from individuals or groups outside the College. Faculty whose work addresses divisive issues, or whose scholarly viewpoints may be considered controversial may find themselves targets of unwelcome attacks, in virtual (or actual) space. We recognize that such targeting may be disproportionately experienced by faculty of color and those that are underrepresented in their fields of study.

This guide includes a set of practices and strategies that the institution can take to assist faculty that are faced with such situations, and also provides practical advice that faculty themselves can take to respond in the event that they are targeted by individuals or groups outside of the College based on the content of their scholarship and teaching. It addresses potential concerns arising in such situations and lists resources available to assist individual faculty members, department chairs, and other administrators. This guide is “content neutral,” in that it is designed to offer support for faculty members across a wide spectrum of views and areas of research.

The foundation for this guide is Occidental’s unwavering support for academic freedom and freedom of expression. As stated in the Faculty Handbook, “Occidental resolutely reaffirms its commitment to academic freedom … colleges and universities serve the common good through learning, teaching, research, and scholarship; and the fulfillment of this function necessarily rests upon the preservation of the intellectual freedoms of teaching, expression, research, and debate. All components of the academic community have a responsibility to exemplify and support these freedoms in the interests of reasoned inquiry.” The faculty’s right to academic freedom includes controversial issues or ideas that may provoke public disagreement. Through this guide, and other means, the College seeks to protect faculty against the intimidation or violence that the expression of unpopular ideas and controversial research sometimes generates.

This guide focuses on threats to or harassment of faculty members from outside the College. For information about policies and procedures governing discrimination, harassment and retaliation committed by Oxy employees or students, please see Oxy’s Discrimination, Harassment, and Retaliation Policy, and other Oxy policies governing workplace behavior. In addition, community members should be familiar with the College’s Threat Assessment Policy, to understand how to respond in situations in which a member of the Oxy community may pose a threat to the safety of others.

In matters of safety and security, individual faculty members are encouraged to make use of campus resources to assist them in responding to an immediate situation, as well as to address any concerns that arise in the longer term. Knowing about relevant resources and guidance in advance of a crisis will help members of our community respond more effectively when a situation arises.

The following section offers suggestions for individuals in various roles, including:

College Leadership
Individual Faculty Member
Department Chair
Academic Administration
Marketing and Communications

1. Guidelines for College Leadership (President and/or Board Chair)

As the public face of the institution, the President’s stance on matters of academic freedom is important as both a guiding principle of the College’s core values, and should form the basis of a full-throated defense of academic freedom whenever a faculty member is targeted.

College Leadership

Proactively develop a leadership message that defends academic freedom, the importance of faculty safety, and the development of learning environments, to which all students have access, in which difficult issues are discussed and dissected. In addition to proactive messaging, work with Marketing and Communications to reaffirm these principles for use as a template to ensure a strong and swift public response should a crisis arise.

2. Guidelines for the Individual Faculty Member

Identify your primary concerns and seek out assistance to help ensure your safety. The following suggestions may be of use in your personal safety planning.

Individual Faculty Member	Consult directly or work with your department chair and the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs to ensure the appropriate institutional response to any targeting or threats that you experience, which may include engaging the College’s Threat Management Team, or working directly with Campus Safety on appropriate responses.
	Campus Safety is a resource for all members of the Oxy community that can provide assistance to faculty experiencing targeting or threats. Assistance may include safety escorts, patrols, or other measures as appropriate. Reach out to Rick Tanksley, Director of campus safety, (rtanksley@oxy.edu, 323-341-4685) to discuss your safety concerns.
	Download the LiveSafe app, which is designed to provide students, faculty and staff with an easy way to directly connect with Campus Safety for your safety and security needs.
	If you believe those who are targeting you know where you live and you are concerned about safety in your home, Campus Safety can assist you in assessing risk and planning accordingly, and can help connect you to law enforcement resources in your local community.
	Notify your chair and other colleagues as necessary to protect the safety of all members of the department and community.
	If you are experiencing gender-based harassment and/or harassment that is sexual in nature, contact the Human Resources Department, the Title IX Coordinator, or the staff member designated to handle complaints about harassment, discrimination or retaliation, to ensure that you are fully aware of your rights and resources.
	If you are experiencing electronic harassment of any kind, please contact the VP for ITS/CIO at 323-259-2506 or cio@oxy.edu for assistance. Do not delete any messages, but you may want to disengage from reading all emails in your inbox, listening to all voice messages, etc. Preserved messages may be of use in identifying the harassers and pressing any relevant charges. Seek out assistance to review and sort your incoming messages (e.g., find someone to read your messages and forward harassing ones to the Threat Assessment Team and work-related ones to you). Also, see *Protecting Your Oxy Information* for guidance.
	Create a log to document and archive all threatening emails, tweets, Facebook posts, and phone messages. Consider asking a friend to monitor social and other media apart from your personal accounts to keep you apprised of any developments or threats. ITS can work with you to manage your Oxy email account and other systems to properly document the threatening/harassing behavior.
	If you are concerned about your cyber-identity (e.g., cell phone, network access, social media), contact ITS for assistance. See *Oxy* *ITS Online Safety and Security*.
	If you are concerned about the potential for harassment, you can have your directory information and affiliation removed from the College’s website. Please contact the Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs for assistance.