Trustees, Criminal Background and BDS

In a follow up on the UI Board of Trustees meeting, the News-Gazette had two articles highlighting what was discussed and voted on (full agenda here). The first article dealt with a push to stop using criminal background questions that deter potential students form even applying:

Group: Criminal query discourages college applicants
A movement to “ban the box” asking about prior criminal history on job applications has spawned a similar effort in college admissions.

A student-led group urged University of Illinois trustees on Thursday

to drop questions about students’ criminal and disciplinary history from the admissions applications at all three UI campuses.

Amber Blatt, a graduate student in social work at the UI Chicago, said admissions policies can create barriers to education.

The UI requires applicants to describe their criminal records and high school disciplinary violations, which can be “invasive and humiliating” and discourage students from applying, Blatt said, addressing the board during its public comment session.

“It sends the message that such students are not welcome to apply here,” she said.

Supporters from the group Yes Apply at Illinois held up signs reading “All students welcome to apply,” which they said were modeled after 19th century “Irish need not apply” signs...

The UI Chicago has removed the question from its applications for graduate school, Blatt said.

Last June, Louisiana became the first state to ban all public colleges from asking about criminal history during the application process (with exceptions for convictions relating to sexual assault or stalking). The State University of New York’s board also voted to stop asking applicants about felony convictions. California state schools have never asked the question, Blatt said.

In a related UI trustees article, BDS or Boycott, Divstment and Sanction, an anti-Israel movement was opposed by the President:

President Tim Killeen issued a statement Thursday expressing strong opposition to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement under debate on many college campuses.

Killeen said the opposition is consistent with the stance by many national higher education organizations that have spoken out against the “BDS” movement and its call for a boycott of Israel over its treatment of Palestinians.

“While we acknowledge and affirm the rights of faculty and students to express their own viewpoints, we believe that actions such as those espoused by BDS would damage academic freedom and may have an intended or unintended anti-Semitic effect, which we utterly condemn,” he said.

More Trustee actions in the full article here.