By Parker Leipzig

Antisemitic pamphlets distributed around Old Town sparked the need for the Bias Incident Support Services, a branch under the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Maryland, to host a Circle event about centering the experiences of the Jewish community on campus on Nov. 2.

Circle events are personal conversations held via Zoom to address and facilitate healing in communities facing hate bias incidents. Brian Medina, BISS program manager and Circle event moderator, said an event like this one is just one step in the process of healing. 

“Sometimes people ask for a Circle event, and they ask for a community-wide approach of how do we seek healing amongst a group of us, either amongst an identity or between identities to be healed,” Medina said.

Ze reiterated the idea that people might immediately respond one way when they experience an incident of hate, but later might feel differently, and it is critical to continue to give people support and center them at that time.

While it is hard to say whether hate incidents have risen, fallen or stayed the same in pandemic times compared to normal years, the increasingly online environment has changed the way that BISS responds. 

Isolation can exacerbate an instance of hate, especially if it occurred solely on the online space, as someone may not be able to feel the comfort of their support system. 

Comparing the number of incidents during the pandemic can also be difficult because these cases might be underreported. This could be due to students not knowing about resources or feeling fearful of what would happen after reporting the incident. 

“But some of this is about putting us out there in order for folks to know that we value them and care about them. Acknowledging this is very hard and so all these factors that are maybe barriers for folks if they choose to report — we’re here for them,” Medina said. “And yet we also don’t want to shame somebody if they’re not ready, maybe they need some time to do that first.”

To try to increase student awareness of BISS’s resources, BISS is planning a 2021-2022 Visibility Campaign, according to the BISS Annual Report 2020-2021. Medina said that Alex Franklin, a graduate staff member that works in the office, has worked with hir to develop marketing materials for physical postings on campus as well as social media posts. 

The Student Advisory Group for BISS initiated by Franklin said many people are unaware of BISS’s presence on campus in their critique last year. The upcoming visibility campaign plans to address this issue and allow their aid to be more accessible to current students and alumni.

Allison Dickinson, the communications officer for ODI, highlighted Franklin’s work creating the hashtag #BISSIs to post content under for the visibility campaign.

“So you may see content under #BISSIs,” Dickinson said. “Things like ‘#BISSIs an advocate’ or ‘#BISSIs here for you when you’ve been impacted by a bias incident.’”

The office also hopes to collaborate more with other on-campus organizations such as the LGBTQ+ Equity Center and Multicultural Involvement Community Advocacy, among others.

“Not only does that inform us differently, we create more trauma-informed responses and ensure that folks are having dignity and humanity in our response,” Medina said.

Aside from the Circle and the work that ODI and BISS does, Medina said the UMD community as a whole can work together to create a sense of community.

“There are countless ways to advocate for a sense of belonging within UMD,” Medina said. “Whether through restorative circles, student organizations, empowering student activism, or informal engagement between faculty, staff and students, we can uplift the dignity and humanity of others in ways big and small.”

Featured image: A flyer advertising the Circle event on centering the Jewish community hosted by Bias Incident Support Services, a branch under the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Maryland. Photo courtesy of BISS.

Editor’s note: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that BISS’s visibility campaign hashtag is #ThisIs. The correct hashtag is #BISSIs. This story has been updated.