President Chabotar's Remarks at the Open Forum Jan. 24

This statement is based on two sets of remarks that President Chabotar delivered from outline notes.

This is a sad time for Guilford College.  This is a sad time for the students, especially the students who were injured on Saturday morning.  Our sympathy and prayers are with them and their families.

We seek truth, justice, and reconciliation.  Truth, justice, and reconciliation are hard things to achieve.  Truth, justice, and reconciliation are impossible without due process, respect, and listening to other voices.

There are many aspects of this incident about which I could speak, and what it says about our society, culture, and campus.  What underlying tensions does it reveal?   But I am going to focus my brief remarks today on hate and fear.  I wish these were simple words to understand and explain but they are not. 

Hate speech.  Hate crime.  There I said it.  But to call what happened at Bryan Hall either of those things, we must find facts that meet the precise legal definitions of those terms.  We cannot just throw them around because they sound good or reflect our emotions. We must not rush to judgment.

Hate speech are words directed at a specific person or group because of who they are with the intention of causing them harm.  Hate crime is an action, also directed at a specific person or group because of who they are, with the specific purpose of causing them bodily harm.  What actually was done and said is not yet clear despite the feelings among some on and off campus that they are very clear.  About the incident, it is far more acceptable to claim, “This is what is what I saw” than “This is what happened” because very few outside the students involved saw everything.  If the facts warrant, this College will call it hate speech or a hate crime.  If we cannot find the facts to support those terms, we will not use them.

Safety and a feeling of security must be preserved in our residence halls and throughout campus.  By Monday, January 22, we issued “no contact” orders to the students involved in the incident that have been obeyed.  We also hired extra security officers to patrol the residence halls and other buildings, and to pay special care to the security of the students and staff involved.  At the time, we did not think that removing the students off campus would be necessary.  We have since reconsidered and moved the students off-campus for the time being as a reassurance of safety and to speed our investigation.  If they need hotel accommodations, the College will pay for them and help them in any other way we can to deal with this situation.

What I would like to achieve from this and other meetings are answers to at least three issues.  What else do we need to do to ensure safety and security?  What should we do to reduce divisions and bitterness?  What more do all us need to say or do in order to restore community to Guilford College?

Jan. 24, 2007