As so many have noted, the COVID-19 pandemic and protests following George Floyd’s murder have highlighted inequalities and systemic racism across the US. Consistent with this, many people are more actively working to correct these many wrongs.
One common theme of anti-racism work (i.e., acknowledging one’s own and actively working to correct structural and systemic racism) begins with oneself, for example, acknowledging and owning white privilege (I am white and I have it.) and striving to identify over-sights, assumptions, racist ideas, etc. in one’s own thinking. Accepting the fact that I likely harbor racist thoughts, opinions, expectations, etc., identifying them, and then dealing with them are important anti-racist steps.
Another aspect of this work is giving more power to those who have historically lacked it. Simultaneously, people identifying systemic or individual biases (or worse) need to be protected from backlash or punishment by those in power. To this end, I have created an anonymous and confidential bias incident reporting tool that I will share with my classes every quarter. It is anonymous, so a student may feel safer reporting something that I did or happened in a class I am teaching. I also hope that by identifying this on my syllabus, as well as mentioning it in class, it will signal that I genuinely want this feedback for my self-improvement, as well as improvement of my classes or class climate.
I used UW’s WebQ, as UW-IT suggested when I asked for an anonymous emailer, but I presume any online survey system could also do this. I first made it confidential. When you create a WebQ survey, this was the first question. I have also asked a student to answer and I checked their results. There was no name or username connected, only a six or eight digit number. I will test it again and verify that it isn’t a person’s student ID number!
It is only a one question survey and here’s my text:
I am sorry something happened that brought you here. Please explain what happened, any response(s), and any additional information you wish. If I (Brian Flaherty) behaved in a biased manner or my class structure is biased, I will read your comments and try to correct things. Remember, this is a confidential survey. I do not have access to your identity. Thank you for your time.
The response is simply a text box. I will get an email every time something is submitted. I also gave respondents the ability to see all the other responses submitted, as well as the ability to edit a response later. They can also submit multiple times.
I’d love to never get a response and hope that that was indirect evidence that I was not committing or creating many biased events or biasing contexts. But if I do receive responses, I’ll work to improve.
Happy to receive suggestions to improve this. Thanks.
