Syracuse University students were reminded to be respectful in their attire this Halloween through an e-mail sent out Monday by Thomas Wolfe, senior vice president and dean of student affairs.

The e-mail asked students to be thoughtful and sensitive when choosing a costume and to consider how their portrayal of ethnicity and race, gender, class, religion, culture, sexual orientation or disability might affect others. The Department of Public Safety will be patrolling on Halloween to make sure costumes are in good taste.

‘The rule of thumb for costumes is: If you’re putting it on and something feels a little funny, that’s an intuition you should listen to,’ said Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz, the associate vice president of student affairs for inclusion, community and citizenship. ‘This message is all about thinking before you act. It’s really about becoming a more inclusive community.’

This year’s e-mail was sent in coalition with the STOP Bias program, which was launched last month. STOP Bias was created to provide the SU community with resources to help those who have been impacted by bias incidents on and around campus.

‘This e-mail is not specific to Halloween costumes. This is a much broader issue,’ Kantrowitz said. ‘It’s not the case that every year at Halloween we see a lot of policy violations. But time and time again, we hear from students and faculty that they were really hurt or surprised by costumes and that there were costumes in poor taste.’

The website has already received reports of bias on campus, such as racial slurs, Kantrowitz said. Students can also use the website to report biased costumes during themed parties over the weekends, though there have not been any yet, she said.

The e-mails reminding students to be sensitive about their costumes started coming out after an incident years ago, because there is the potential for physical violence, Kantrowitz said.

An investigation about a report of a racially insensitive Halloween costume occurred five or six years ago, said DPS Chief Tony Callisto. And though there have been reports of biased costumes since then, none have been serious enough to prompt an investigation, he said.

If DPS patrol officers see a biased costume during Halloween weekend, they will act on it, Callisto said.

‘If we detect that there’s a person with an offensive costume, we’d likely require them to remove it, and we would file a judicial complaint,’ Callisto said. ‘There are costumes that could be very offensive to members of protected class communities.’

Students can also report bias to DPS. It will investigate the incident to see if there was actually bias, which would be a violation of the Code of Student Conduct, and would then file a judicial complaint.

Halloween this year falls on a Sunday, and DPS will send the same number of patrol officers to cover the community as it normally does on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to ensure students stay safe, Callisto said.

‘Bias is not the only thing that we’re looking for. We are also looking to keep Syracuse students and the community safe by doing everything we can to make sure people aren’t the victims of a crime or in trouble,’ Callisto said.

When it comes to Halloween and the potential for biased costumes, Kantrowitz said students need to think about their reasoning behind their choices in costume.

‘As people are dressing up trying to emulate another person, you have to ask yourself, ‘Why am I doing this?” Kantrowitz said. ‘Most of the time, it is not likely that the costume is trying to represent the person as beautiful or respectful.’

Some students said they believe the message conveyed in the e-mail will not reach all students.

‘Sometimes, people are just uninformed; they don’t read the e-mails,’ said Ira Huff, a sophomore history major. ‘Worst-case scenario, people don’t care that their costume is offensive, and those are the people you have to watch out for.’

Jess Martin, a sophomore history and education major, and Rachel Benedict, a freshman biology major and pre-med student, said they agreed with Huff.

‘I don’t think the e-mail stopped anyone. Some people are still going to do it,’ Martin said. ‘Some popular costumes are reinforced stereotypes, so the costumes seem like they are OK when they aren’t.’

The topic was brought up at Benedict’s residence hall floor meeting, and she said it may have caused some students to think about their costume choices, but there are also always the ignorant ones who are not going to listen.

‘Students need to remember that what you see on Comedy Central or on other cable comedy stations doesn’t make it right here at Syracuse University,’ Callisto said. ‘What’s difficult for people to remember, sometimes, is what might be appropriate for a cable television outlet is not going to be appropriate in a place like Syracuse University, a place that really celebrates diversity.’

medelane@syr.edu

Published on October 13, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Meghin: medelane@syr.edu | @meghinwithani