The dynamism of the civil rights movement of the fifties and the student movements of the sixties had faded by the mid-1980s. Although the legacy of these
movements remained, students seemed now more confused and more tense about race and ethnic relations than their predecessors. The eighties generation
appeared by all accounts to be less altruistic, more competitive, more vocationally-oriented and less politically engaged. They had come of political age in a more
conservative time, a period which devalued the gains of the earlier movements of change (Loeb, 1994; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Postsecondary Education
Opportunity, 1996).

Many observers have commented on how increasing group conflict on college campuses since the early 1980s (Sidel, 1994; Marcus, 1996). These conflicts involve
different race and ethnic groups as well as sexual harassment and homophobia. The campus conflicts which erupted in the 1980s were framed by the changes which
had taken place in the larger society (see Ehrlich, 1990; Pincus and Ehrlich, 1994). It was during this period that the National Institute Against Prejudice and
Violence (organized on the recommendation of a task force impaneled by the Governor of Maryland) began its research program on ethnoviolence. In 1986, the
Institute turned its focus to campus ethnoviolence and, in conjunction with the UMBC Office of Human Relations Programs, conducted its first campus survey
(Ehrlich, Pincus, and Morton, 1987). Since that time, over 20 systematic studies of campus ethnoviolence have been conducted. Those studies have shown that the
median percentage of students reporting victimization based on prejudice is approximately 16%. The rates vary across campuses from 10 to 32% (Ehrlich, 1995).

However, these aggregate figures can be misleading because of the low victimization rates among Whites and the high rates among minority students. In general,
nonminority White students are the least victimized with their rates ranging from 5 to 15%. Racially and ethnically identified students are more often the targets of
ethnoviolence. While these rates vary across groups and campuses, they appear to average between 25 and 30%. That is, approximately one of every four minority
students is a victim of an ethnoviolent act at least once during the school year. (The findings of these studies are summarized in detail in Ehrlich, 1995.)

Even this rate, as outstanding as it is, understates the impact of ethnoviolence on a campus. A racially insulting note, for example, stapled to the dorm door of an
African American student is not merely a traumatic event for that student. The knowledge of that incident will spread across the residence hall and across campus.
Within a short time, the majority of African American students, as well as large numbers of other students, will have heard about it. Many of these students are also
victims because they will suffer the same symptoms of post-traumatic stress as those who were directly victimized. In this report, we will explore different forms of
victimization as well the responses of students.

A Note on Terminology

Because the concepts of social science are often at variance with their usage in the everyday language, we want to introduce the terms which will be central in this
report. There are nine concepts which require our special attention: prejudice, discrimination, violence, ethnoviolence, group defamation, ethnic group, minority
group, and sexual harassment.

Prejudice. Prejudice is a negative attitude towards a group and to persons perceived to be members of that group. An attitude consists of a complex pattern of
beliefs, emotions, and motivations to act.

Discrimination. While prejudice is an attitude, discrimination is overt action. Generally, discrimination refers to actions which deny equal treatment to a group or to
persons perceived to be members of a group. The result is to restrict the opportunities or rewards available to others, while maintaining those opportunities and
rewards for one's own membership group.

Violence. An act intended to cause physical or psychological harm to a person.

Ethnoviolence. Ethnoviolence is an act motivated by prejudice and intended to do physical or psychological harm to persons because of their actual or perceived
membership in a group. Ethnoviolence includes acts ranging from brutal assaults, murder and arson to everyday expressions of prejudice such as racial insults or
other slights which are common in the daily experience of many people and cause measurable harm in their cumulative effect. Groups victimized by ethnoviolence are
those defined typically by ethnicity, race, religion, national origin, gender or sexual orientation.

Group defamation. Group defamation is an indirect and delimited form of ethnoviolence. It is limited to verbal and other messages (jokes, cartoons, graffiti, leaflets,
posters, e-mail, articles, etc) which are motivated by prejudice. It is indirect in that it targets an entire group rather than targeting a specific individual. Ethnoviolent
acts are generally face-to-face and directed at a particular person; group defamatory acts are impersonal and directed at an ethnic category.

Ethnic group. In contemporary usage, ethnic groups are broadly defined as groups sharing beliefs, values, and cultural characteristics; a common identity; and
feelings of group solidarity.

Race, racial group. A racial group is a social category that is perceived to be biologically distinctive and is treated differently from other groups in a society. (Note
that this is a sociological definition, not a biological one.)

Minority group. For sociologists, minority groups are not described by size and numbers, rather they are defined by power. A minority group is generally defined
as a group in a particular society that has little prestige, and low levels of political and economic power.

Sexual Harassment. Unwelcome verbal or physical acts of a sexual nature.

The 1987 UMBC Study

The first systematic study of ethnoviolence on a college campus was conducted at UMBC in the spring of 1987 (Ehrlich, Pincus and Morton, 1987). In that study,
347 students responded to questionnaires administered in 12 different classes that were representative of the undergraduate curriculum. Ten percent of students said
that they had experienced ethnoviolence during the 1986-1987 academic year. Almost 20% of the Black and Asian students were victimized, compared to only 5%
of the White students. At the time, we had no baseline with which to compare these findings. Now, as a result of subsequent studies, we can say that UMBC falls in
the low range of campuses that have been studied.

This original study was widely discussed on campus. The full report was distributed to administrators and department heads and an abridged version appeared as a
centerfold in The Retriever, the campus newspaper. Several well-attended public forums on the report were held on campus. The authors were asked to speak
privately with several faculty and staff groups, including the Office of Student Affairs staff. Several of the findings influenced revisions in the Student Disciplinary
Codes. The University Police produced a nationally-distributed film called "Still Burning-- Confronting Ethnoviolence on Campus" in 1989. Over 500 copies had
been sold by the Fall of 1996.

The 1995 UMBC Study

We decided to repeat and extend the study in the Spring of 1995 to see if the rate of ethnoviolence had changed. Of course, UMBC itself had undergone some
important changes. Enrollment was 10,297 at the start of the 1994-1995 academic year, a 12% increase from 1986-1987. Most of this increase was accounted for
by graduate students. The undergraduate population of 8794 was only 3% higher than eight years earlier.

The data in Table 1.1 show that the African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic populations had also increased, from 20% of the student body in 1986-1987
to 27% in 1994-1995. The international student population, many of whom are Asian, had also increased. Finally, the student body had become older, the
proportion of first-year students had declined, and the proportion attending part-time had increased.

The UMBC administration had also changed. Freeman Hrabowski, UMBC's first African-American President, has an enthusiastic management style and is often
seen talking informally with students on campus. This is quite different from the previous president who was perceived as aloof. In addition, the Office of Student
Affairs has become much more sensitive to the issue of ethnoviolence and has developed an elaborate procedure for dealing with incidents.

We sought the support of the UMBC administration and the various representative bodies on campus. In the Spring of 1994, the study was endorsed by the
Committee for Racial and Ethnic Justice and by the Faculty, Classified Staff and Associate Staff Senates. The University Steering Committee approved the study for
the Spring of 1995, as did the President and the Provost.

The 1995 UMBC study differed from the 1987 study in several important respects. First, we sought a much larger sample. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski
sent a very supportive letter to all faculty encouraging, but not requiring, them to allow the 20-minute questionnaire to be administered in their classes. We did not
have a Presidential letter in 1987.

The second difference is the expansion of the scope of concern. In 1987, we only asked students if they were victimized because of race, ethnicity, nationality, or
religion. In the 1995 study, we also included gender and sexual orientation.

Third, we added several questions about student experiences with sexual harassment. Fourth, we added a series of questions designed to elicit the character of the
trauma experienced by direct, personal victims and by those who witnessed or experienced group defamation incidents.

The final difference is that we included one question asking whether respondents had been perpetrators of ethnoviolence. To our knowledge, this is the first time that
this question has been asked in a campus study. The questionnaire appears in Appendix A.

The Sample

Since the questionnaire was to be distributed in classes, we asked a representative sample of UMBC faculty to allow us to come to their classes. The 32 faculty who
participated were gracious with their time. Several of them let us use two or three of their classes which resulted in the questionnaire being distributed in 39 different
classes. Many faculty, especially in the sciences, declined our request to use their classes. The most common explanation was that they could not afford to give up
even 20 minutes of their class time. A few objected to the nature of the study itself.

The questionnaire was usually distributed by a member of the research team. Students were told they should not put their names or social security numbers on the
questionnaire so that they would remain anonymous. They were also told that they did not have to fill out the questionnaire, although only a small number refused to
do so. We collected 912 usable questionnaires, which represents over 10% of the undergraduate student body.

Given the constraints we faced, the data in Table 1.1 (see end of chapter) show that the sample is reasonably representative of UMBC undergraduates. Full-time
students and juniors are overrepresented while part-timers and freshman are underrepresented. Students 21 years old and under are overrepresented and those 22
and older are underrepresented. This probably is related to the greater part-time attendance rates of older students.

In spite of the reluctance of many faculty to volunteer their classes, the distribution of student majors for the sample is quite similar to that of the UMBC population.
The same is true for race/ethnicity, although the percentage of international students in the sample is somewhat higher than in the UMBC population.

Unfortunately, we are not able to provide precise figures for the gender distribution in the sample. Due to miscommunication in the instructions given to one large
predominantly male science class, 146 of the respondents did not indicate their gender. Of the 766 respondents who did indicate gender, 40.3% were male and
59.7% were female.

The Report

The rest of this report consists of seven additional chapters. The next chapter focuses on ethnoviolence, while Chapter 3 discusses sexual harassment. Chapter 4
analyzes the traumatic effects of victimization. Group defamation and indirect forms of victimization are discussed in Chapter 5 while Chapter 6 examines the findings
on the intergroup attitudes of UMBC students. Chapter 7 presents the data on the perpetrators of ethnoviolence and sexual harassment. Finally, we offer some
concluding remarks and recommendations in Chapter 8.

There are four Appendixes. Appendix A contains the questionnaire and the basic frequency distributions for all questions. Additional tables cited but not included in
the text are in Appendix B. Appendix C comprises a summary of intergroup comparisons which will be helpful to those seeking reference to specific group
experiences. Appendix D is a display of student opinions on changing the campus climate.

A Note on Data Presentation

We have tried to minimize the number of tables and display of inferential statistics for the convenience of readers not accustomed to such materials. Further, most
tables in the text are accompanied by a footnote designed to instruct the reader how to read the table.

One matter of presentation does require a cautionary note. Most observations are expressed as percentages for the purpose of allowing comparisons across
subgroups. However, we routinely shift the baseline on which the percentages are calculated in order to develop a particular line of investigation. Although these
shifts are generally signaled in the text, the casual reader may sometimes miss them. There are three baselines, each addressing a different question. We will use
sexual harassment to illustrate. (1) What percentage of all students were sexually harassed? The baseline in this case is all students in the sample. (2) What
percentage of male students were sexually harassed? The baseline is all male students in the sample. And (3) What percentage of all students who were sexually
harassed were angry about it? The baseline here is those students who were sexually harassed.

Finally, the reader will observe that the number of students used to calculate a

particular baseline changes within and between tables. These changes, which are usually quite small in number, are the consequence of students skipping questions or
answers which were not machine readable. The baselines are always calculated on the basis of the number of students responding.

Acknowledgments

An extraordinary number of concerned people made this study and report possible.

Stan Vysotsky served as research assistant helping immeasurably with the collection and organization of the data. Bob Purvis assisted us during all phases of the
study and read the full manuscript providing invaluable suggestions.

Robin Huntington and Debbie Allnock conducted the computer analysis and Marina Adler and Brandy Britton provided methodological consultation. Leslie Morgan
and Natalie Sokoloff reviewed the report offering a much appreciated perspective.

Finally, we offer our appreciation to members of the administration and faculty who provided support and donated their class time to this project: Jo Anne E.
Argersinger, Jennie Dunleavey Bloom, Judith Bremner, Colin B. Burke, Vera Regina DaSilva, Henry H. Emurian, Jonathan C. Finkelstein, Jay M. Freyman, Daphne
D. Harrison, Douglas Hamby, Freeman Hrabowsky, William R. Johnson, Kim Knapp, Severino L. Koh, Dale W. Kreider, Andrew Bryan Mackay, Carole R.
McCann, Ethan L. Miller, Angela B. Moorjani, Charles K. Nicolous, Harry Mark Perks, Sara Z. Poggio, Joyce Riley, John T. Robinson, Thomas Robinson,
Joeseph School, Aron W. Siegman, Robert A. Sloane, Raymend H. Starr, Roye S. Templeton, James E. Trela, Douglass E. Wilkenson, Charles M. Woolston.

Table 1.1: Percent Distribution of UMBC Undergraduate Population in Fall 1986 and Fall 1994 and 1995 Sample on Student Status, Class Rank, Race/Ethnicity and Major
Characteristic
UMBC Undergraduates
1995 Sample
Fall 1986
Fall 1994
Student Status

Full-time
72.1
69.7
89.4
Part-time
27.9
30.3
10.6
Class Rank

Freshman
39.5
17.3
12.5
Sophomore
19.2
21.2
20.7
Junior
18.1
25.8
39.2
Senior
23.1
28.1
27.5
Other
--
7.7
0
Age

Under 20
31.5
18.9
32.6
20-21
25.1
23.8
28.0
22-29
31.1
38.6
27.1
30-39
8.5
11.8
8.6
40 and over
3.8
6.9
3.8
Race/Ethnicity

African American
12.3
14.6
15.4
Asian American
6.9
10.4
7.9
Hispanic
1.2
2.0
2.6
White
77.9
70.2
65.9
International*/other
1.5
2.8
8.1
Major

Social Sciences
10.5
19.9
21.4
Humanities
5.9
11.6
11.2
Math/Science
5.0
18.4
18.4
Engr/IFSM/CMSC
16.0
20.0
16.3
Undecided
45.5
12.4
12.2
Other
17.3
17.7
20.5

E.g., 69.7% of the UMBC undergraduates and 89.4% of the sample are enrolled full-time. The columns for each item add up to 100%.

*Includes Asian, Middle-Eastern, African and Hispanic non-citizens.