Asian American Leaders Criticize State Rights Commission Task Force

SEATTLE

Asian American students and community leaders are criticizing a state Human Rights Commission task force report on Washington State University's handling of a student complaint about behavior by two school basketball players.

"I was very disappointed,'' said Doug Chin, president of the Seattle chapter of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

The report looked at the way the university responded to a February complaint by WSU student Nina Kim, who worked in the school's Multicultural Center. She complained that two White male students, part of a group who would frequently pass by her office window, made animal noises and danced in what she referred to as a monkey-like style.

On one occasion, she said, one of the young men pulled up his eyes in a slant and motioned "I heart you.''

Kim's complaint prompted a Feb. 23 campus march by about 100 students calling for expulsions and better minority recruiting at the university.

A WSU student conduct board found that while the two young men might have engaged in adolescent behavior, there was insufficient evidence to call it harassment under the university's code of conduct. The board also decided the behavior was not racially motivated.

When informed of the complaint, the students apologized, stopped the behavior and expressed surprise that it had been perceived as harassment, the school said.

The rights commission task force report — released last month — found that the process that the university used to address the conduct was sound but that issues such as communication between students and the university should be addressed.

The report was produced at the request of WSU and was neither an official commission document nor the product of an investigation.

Yvonne Kinoshita Ward, chairwoman of the Washington Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs, said she was stunned by the report, adding it made judgments and comments on the people involved.