Vice chancellors and provosts from all 16 UNC system schools discussed a system-wide policy regarding hate crimes and diversity education during a video conference Wednesday. UNC system President Bowles formed an 11-member commission in response to the hate speech incident in the Free Expression Tunnel Nov. 5, 2008 and charged the group with looking at ways to develop a system-wide hate crimes policy. He also asked it to look at the possibility of having system-wide diversity orientation for incoming freshmen. Bowles informed Board of Governors members of the final recommendations of a UNC system commission via a memo he sent April 3.Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Tom Stafford said the video conference allowed all the leaders to be on the same page regarding the commission’s recommendations.”The commission recommended that the Board of Governors make a policy regarding hate crimes, personal violence and intimidation,” he said. “President Bowles is going to ask Harold Martin and Laura Luger to work on drafting that policy. They will then present it to the Board of Governors.”Stafford said it is likely the BOG will pass the policy, which will prompt each campus to cater its student code of conduct to fit the system-wide policy. “Each campus will look at its own individual policy and compare it to the system policy to make sure the language on each campus doesn’t conflict with this policy,” Stafford said. “He also said this policy will in now way inhibit people’s right to freedom of expression.”While the commission did make a recommendation regarding hate crimes, it did not make a solid decision on how to handle the issue of diversity education.”When they got into that discussion they discovered it was a very complicated issue,” Stafford said. “It’s not quite as simple to say every freshman ought to be required to take training. Because of that the president is going to make a special task force to look at this issue in more depth.”Stafford said the special commission could take up to six months to study the issue and come up with the best way for each campus to handle diversity education. Matt Woodward, a freshman in applied sociology, said he wishes the commission could have made more concrete recommendations. “Being on the Campus Culture task force, the first thing I looked at was what the commission looked at surrounding diversity-related programming,” he said. “I was a little disappointed that it was more deferred to another committee or task force. I was really hoping the commission would have done all the research so they could make a decision.”Stafford said the special commission’s deferral of diversity education to another task force boiled down to logistics and the time it would take to complete such a large task. He also said he hopes each campus will be able to make decisions on its own to determine how incoming freshmen would learn about diversity. “We know best about N.C. State,” Stafford said. “I would be reluctant to tell ASU what to do because their culture is different. It’s important for every campus to look at this issue and figure out what would be the best way to address it on each individual campus.”Student Body President Jim Ceresnak, a junior in political science, said he plans to focus on this issue during his time as SBP. “I want to be involved in this process,” he said. “Discussion and action on diversity and hate crimes is extremely important.”Stafford said a system-wide policy regarding hate speech could be drafted and passed by the BOG as early as the beginning of the fall semester. “The campus could see that policy in the fall,” he said. “Every campus will have two or three months to respond to that policy and make changes.”Woodward said he hoped the deliberation about diversity education for freshman continues in the coming weeks and is not forgotten by the UNC system or the University. “This issue needs to be at the forefront of our conversations,” he said. “If we wait for another event to happen then we’re going to have a student uprising. If we address these issues early on it’s a piece of the solution puzzle.”