Raul Sanchez wants to expand the job description of the Center for Human Rights. The traditional function of the CHR is to conduct searches to make sure equal opportunity employment is carried out and to investigate harassment, Sanchez, director of the CHR, said. The CHR is a fact-finding agency in investigations. CHR doesn’t determine punishments, he said. The center does give general recommendations, but the Office of Student Conduct or administrators decide the consequences.

“We’re trying to do more work that’s progressive and affirmative in terms of educating people and raising awareness around the issues,” Sanchez said. With awareness raised on campus, it could decrease the amount of investigations, he said. Judy Krueger, case manager and senior investigator for CHR, also thinks the increase in education will decrease investigations.

“I think the more the word gets out it would help matters,” she said. With more education, people wouldn’t be willing to jeopardize their jobs in cases such as sexual harassment, Krueger said. After the Nina Kim racial harassment allegations against four freshman basketball players last spring, the CHR and Office of Student Conduct began working together more often. Approximately one-third of the cases the CHR handles now are student cases. Before April, the CHR only investigated claims involving faculty and staff. “I cannot emphasize to you enough how time consuming an investigation is,” Sanchez said.

Student conduct cases have always taken less than 30 days to investigate, but sexual harassment cases involving employees take months to resolve, he said. Sanchez hesitates to say this change was for the better. His staff now has a larger work load, without an increase in resources. He suggests an alternative dispute resolution, instead of going through an investigation. “The only type of case that I don’t think can be mediated is sexual harassment,” Sanchez said. “To some extent, mediation is sort of negation.” Having an alternative dispute resolution could put the victim through more pain, he said. Elaine Voss, director of the office of student conduct, sees the change as a good addition. “Good communication is always beneficial to anyone, anywhere,” she said. Voss recognizes the added stress of case loads put on CHR, however. “Clearly, no matter where you are, if your case load goes up, something has to give,” Voss said. Since taking on a larger case load, Krueger said she would like to see more investigators added to the staff. Sanchez is currently looking to expand the 10-person staff, of which six are part-time employees and four are full time. A national search for an assistant director just closed. In one to two months, Sanchez hopes to have the position filled from the approximately forty applicants. “I think our name is bigger than our office is,” Sanchez said. His wish list of staff includes two more full-time positions. To increase education of CHR, Sanchez wants a training coordinator. To keep diverse faculty and staff, he wants a recruitment retention specialist. Both positions, if approved after the finalized budget, would work under the assistant director. “It’s problematic, because in a perfect world you would have a full staff and full-time people,” Sanchez said.

Educating the community has been Sanchez’s goal since taking his position in January. He formed the bi-monthly brown bag round table discussion for staff, faculty and students to talk about any human rights concerns. The next discussion is set for noon to 1:30 p.m. on Oct. 19 in Lighty 405. The topic is “Free Speech of Students.” The brown bag series is beneficial to those who attend, but Voss wishes attendance would go up, she said. “We are a college community and that’s our job is to educate,” Voss said.

CHR wants to inform the community of verbal and physical harassment. Although hate speech is constitutional, it is not encouraged. “It’s not against university policy to be hateful,” Sanchez said. “Just because you say ‘I hate’ and name your ethnic group doesn’t mean you can be punished.” Saying such things is uneducated and uninformed but not illegal, he said.