The full results of the fall 2017 campus climate survey, which was completed by 7,326 members of the Iowa State community and conducted by Rankin & Associates Consulting, were released on Wednesday, May 9. 

The sections of the report regarding exclusionary, intimidating, offensive and/or hostile conduct are divided into two different sections: experienced conduct and observed conduct.

Experienced Conduct

Nineteen percent of respondents indicated they personally had experienced exclusionary (e.g. shunned, ignored), intimidating, offensive, and/or hostile (e.g. bullied, harassed) conduct had interfered with their ability to work, learn, or live at Iowa State University within the past year. Of these respondents, 32 percent said they had experienced five or more incidents in the past year.

Thirty percent of respondents who experienced this conduct believed it was because of their gender identity. Twenty-one percent felt it was based on their race or ethnicity.

When elaborating on their experiences, respondents employed by Iowa State often wrote about hostile colleagues, hostile supervisors and a negative work environment.

Others expressed they did not have faith in Iowa State’s harassment reporting processes, with one saying, “I have experienced harassment from both my direct supervisor and from a faculty member. In both incidents, I consulted [an ISU resource] and [he/she] did nothing.”

Student responses focused more on targeted incidences towards political conservatives, female students and racially and ethnically minoritized students.

In regards to being a conservative on campus, one student said, “The Iowa State campus is not a safe place to express any type of conservative political opinion without risking alienation, retaliation and possible physical harm.”

Another conservative student echoed this sentiment, saying, “I had been called ‘racist, bigot, xenophobic, homophobic, stupid, retarded, idiotic, transphobic,’ and many other names, simply for supporting President Trump. I am none of these things and the labels are unfair and untrue.”

Female students frequently said they were not taken seriously by fellow students or faculty. Several of these responses specifically spoke of problems in Iowa State’s engineering programs. One said,  “as a minority in the engineering college, I often hear that I only got an interview/job because I am a woman and companies need to fill a diversity quota and that I’m not actually as qualified.”

Many students identifying as Latinx said other students had chanted things such as, “build the wall” at them or told them to go “back to [their] own country.”

Other minority students discussed faculty not respecting their heritage, as one shared, “when it came from a teacher or advisor, it was in the form of a snarky comment, generalization from unfounded information and lack of engagement or desire to help with the normal tasks provided for other students. Many also deny or refuse to admit that what they said or did was offensive and wrong.”

Students also discussed instances of sexual harassment and assault in this section. Several students identified as survivors of sexual assault. Other students spoke about lewd comments being made both in the classroom and around campus.

Observed Conduct

Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents observed conduct directed toward a person or group of people on campus which they believe created an exclusionary, intimidating, offensive and/or hostile working or learning environment at Iowa State University within the past year.

The following are quotes taken from the five themes identified by comments from faculty, staff and students regarding this type of conduct.

Hostile campus environment for politically conservative individuals

“If you are a conservative [on] this campus, due to some students and more importantly the faculty, the campus is very unfriendly to you”

“The administration has made it clear that students with conservative political views are not deserving of fair treatment. This conduct has carried over to faculty and other students, who regularly make disparaging comments about these students and their backgrounds (primarily white, rural, religious, veterans, etc.). I believe the administration’s response to on-campus incidents and election outcomes has clearly encouraged this behavior.”

“Politically conservative students are often afraid to speak about their views because liberal students often call us ‘racist, sexist, etc.’ for simply disagreeing with their ideas.”

Hostile or Derogatory Verbal Remarks Directed Toward Minorities.

“I have witnessed friends of mine being called racial slurs, especially n****r.”

“I had a group of students last semester, in the spring, who made in-class comments regarding LGBTQ individuals — comments such as transgender students needing to ‘just hold it’ instead of using ‘our bathrooms’ and comments such as ‘loving President Trump’ because he ‘has no use’ for ‘queers’ either.”

“I was on the cyride bus. There were two white females saying that they hated how Ames was full of foreigners and that the bus smelled bad because there were some Asian people on the bus (I think they were from India).”

“I can’t remember the details of some, but I remember a friend being pushed out of the way on the way out of class while some white guys chanted ‘build that wall’ (she was Latina).”

“When the Multicultural Greek Community was going through their awards at Vespers, other members of the Greek Community made some racial calls whenever people would accept their awards.”

Negative Perceptions of Iowa State’s Free-Speech Zone

“I have seen a lot of very Christian groups coming to campus to somewhat yell at students for being students, mainly women. Last year, some guy had a megaphone and yelled at all the girls that walked by in shorts for being sluts.”

“All of the preachers in the free speech zone talking about how gay and trans people are going to hell and need to repent.”

Presence of White Supremacy Materials on Campus.

“This was last fall at Iowa State when a plethora of white supremacists posters were distributed across campus.”

“There were white supremacist stickers all over the bus stations closest to the international dorms Wallace and Wilson. They were racist and threatened any students of color or LGBTQ+ identities considering that QR codes were connected to theses stickers with links to KKK and white supremacy websites.”