Imagine you’re a university official in charge of student affairs, and a student comes to you complaining that he or she feels unsafe in class because his or her professor is strongly presenting viewpoints that the student disagrees with and feels are biased. How do you decide whether or not to take action? Are there any grounds for action? What kind of action do you take?

Like most scenarios involving issues of free speech, academic freedom, hate crimes and incidents spurred by bias, the answer is usually, “it depends.”

That’s why the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and the Anti-Defamation League brought together 17 student safety, diversity and inclusion and student affairs administrators and Hillel representatives from various Illinois campuses for a symposium on Aug. 16 to talk through approaches to addressing these kinds of nuanced and increasingly prevalent incidents.

Miriam Zeidman, Midwest civil rights counsel for the ADL, presented on and reviewed the contours of free speech, hate crimes, hate crime laws, and manifestations of bias on campus. Shen then put forth a number of real-world examples and hypothetical scenarios to the group, and participants generated ideas and asked questions on how to best handle such incidents.

Attendees discussed how to combat hate crimes; the line between free speech and hate speech and the importance of responding to hateful speech with more, inclusive speech; and how to both prevent and handle disruptive protests of free speech events.

“Given the current climate on campus and the probability that bias rhetoric will escalate during this election season, we thought this would be a timely and important discussion to host,” said Emily Briskman, JUF assistant vice president of campus affairs and the executive director of the Israel Education Center.

Among the many takeaways were the need for education for students about when they are accountable for certain speech or actions; the degree of preparedness necessary for universities and student groups that might bring controversial speakers to campus; and the importance of a swift, direct response to hate speech and bias incidents, even if that speech is protected by the law;

To conclude the symposium, JUF Senior Counselor Richard Herman, former chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that no one individual at a college or university is responsible for responding to these incidents.

“It’s not enough for the president or chancellor to say something,” he said. “Whatever the university does is part of a team effort.”

JUF and ADL plan to make the presentation available to other groups and campuses to facilitate an ongoing discussion on these issues.