Nondiscrimination policy draft will be open for comment soon

The new draft of Pitt’s nondiscrimination policy will soon be released for public comment, Allyn Bove, co-chair of the University Senate’s Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee, said at its latest meeting on Sept. 8.

The draft of the policy is ”somewhat finalized,” she said, and will be “released for public comment … in the next few weeks.”

The committee rewriting the policy is also working on a separate FAQ about the policy. “By making a separate piece from the policy,” Bove said, “we will hopefully be able to update it more than every three years.”

The nondiscrimination policy was making its way through shared governance in late 2019 and early 2020 when objections were raised by Faculty Assembly and some Senate committees about the call for mandatory reporting of suspected harassing or discriminatory speech. The policy was sent back to a revision committee to work out changes, but it was delayed because of the pandemic and other issues.

Bove noted that the soon-to-be-released policy still contains a provision that makes every employee of Pitt a mandatory reporter of suspected policy violations witnessed by the employee. She also said that the policy provides for investigation of such suspected violations by Pitt’s Office of Compliance, Investigations and Ethics, but with the involvement of faculty peers as part of the investigation.

She was uncertain, she said, when the policy will reach Faculty Assembly for approval.

— Marty Levine

 

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