Section I

1.1 WHEREAS in August of 2015, UO Admissions added three questions to the undergraduate application requiring applicants to state criminal and disciplinary history dating back to 9th grade; and

WHEREAS questions were subsequently added to graduate school admissions forms requiring disclosure of criminal and disciplinary history; and

WHEREAS the UO Mission Statement asserts that our academic community "value[s] our diversity and seek[s] to foster equity and inclusion in a welcoming, safe, and respectful community"; and

WHEREAS one of the three specific priorities within the campus aspirations for diversity, equity and inclusion is "creating a more inclusive and welcoming campus environment for all faculty, staff, and students"; and

WHEREAS disciplinary actions and criminal charges and convictions fall disproportionately on African Americans, Latino/as, and Native peoples (See Background point 1); and

WHEREAS this policy can have a chilling effect on the current racial climate at UO and may ultimately decrease applications from racial and ethnic groups who are already underrepresented on our campus,(See Background point 2)

WHEREAS the policy ignores the differential and discriminatory treatment of African American, Latinx, and Native students in both K-12 schools and the American justice system at large; ignores U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights data that demonstrates this differential and discriminatory treatment; and ignores respected research in law and education that demonstrates students who are repeatedly suspended or expelled are more likely to enter the criminal justice system, becoming part of a “school-to-prison pipeline,”(See Background point 3)

WHEREAS Department of Education research and other research in the field of Education has noted disproportionate and inappropriate disciplining of low-income students and students with disabilities in K-12 schools, and the UO policy ignores such  discrimination,(See Background point 4)

WHEREAS the admissions application asks students to “reflect on what [they’ve] learned from” any criminal charges, criminal convictions, and/or disciplinary experiences, a request that assumes guilt and denies implicit bias and discrimination are at play in who gets charged, disciplined, or convicted,

WHEREAS most applicants with criminal or disciplinary history do not disclose those histories when asked on application forms,(See Background point 5)

WHEREAS universities that ask questions about criminal background on applications do not have different rates of violent crime than those that do not ask such questions, (See Background point 6) while the vast majority of crimes on campuses are committed by students without criminal backgrounds,(See Background point 7)

Section II

2.1 BE IT THEREBY MOVED that questions asking applicants to disclose criminal and disciplinary history should be stricken from undergraduate and graduate admissions applications forms at the University of Oregon. This legislation does not affect the policies or practices of any programs or departments that are legally required to conduct such background checks.
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Background:

1: Civil Rights data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than that of white students. While black students represented 16 percent of the U.S. student population, they account for 32 percent of the students suspended and 42 percent of those expelled (Adrienne Green, “When Schools are Forced to Practice Race-Based Discipline,” The Atlantic, Aug. 26th, 2015). Black students also had the highest rate of multiple suspensions. Research in law and education journals shows that students who are repeatedly suspended or expelled are more likely to enter the criminal justice system, becoming part of a “school-to-prison pipeline.” Discrimination and implicit racial bias lead to African American, Latinx, and Native students being unfairly targeted for reprimand, suspension, and expulsion (Jason P. Nance, “Over-Disciplining Students, Racial Bias, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” University of Florida Faculty Publications, 2016).

2: See, e.g. Bradley Custer’s study showing that such questions “distressed and deterred some applicants, causing some to withdraw or not to complete their applications. Some applicants expressed feelings of embarrassment, fear, anger, being discriminated against, and other negative reactions.” Results are described in Custer, B. 2013. “College admissions policies for students with felony conviction: Why they are not working at one institution.” College & University, 88 (4), 28–36.

3: See Department of Education webpage:  https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/data.html.     Also  Fabelo, Tony and Dottie Carmichael, “Breaking School Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement,” Public Policy Research Institute, Justice Center of the Council of State Governments, 2011. See also note 1.

4: See Fabelo and Carmichael above. Also “Civil Rights Data Collection: Date Snapshot: School Discipline,” Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, Issue Brief 1 (March 2014).

5: Runyan, C. W., Pierce, M. W., Shankar, V., & Bangdiwala, S. (2013). “Can student- perpetrated college crime be predicted based on precollege misconduct?” Injury Prevention. 2013, 19:405-411.

6: Olszewska, M. J. V. (2007). Undergraduate admission application as a campus   crime mitigation measure: Disclosure of applicants’ disciplinary background information and its relation to campus crime (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from ILLiad.

7: University of North Carolina, Task Force on the Safety of the Campus Community. (2004). Report of the UNC Task Force on the Safety of the Campus Community. Retrieved from http://intranet.northcarolina.edu/docs/aa/reports/Final_safety_task_for…. pdf