Taiwanese University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students who say they were harassed on campus because of their race were shown surveillance video of the incident for the first time today.
The students – who say a group of white men came up to them in August imitating monkeys – want more to be done with that video to hold those men accountable.
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“We feel like they can do more,” UNC doctoral student Shao-Jung Louie Lu said. “They didn’t try to actively search in the options for solutions here.”
Students who were shown the video this morning by UNC’s University Compliance Office (UCO) say the faces of the men involved are clearly visible. They also say they’re disappointed that UCO implied it was the students’ responsibility – not the school’s – to identify the men.
“Usually this kind of racial harassment happens [with] those who you don’t know – who you’ve never met,” UNC doctoral student Yu-Hsiu Lien said. “If this is the common procedure of the university’s policy on investigating racial harassment, then probably we will never get [accountability].”
WRAL reached out to UNC for clarity on UCO’s harassment investigation policy.
A spokesperson emailed back saying – in part – that “the impacted students were offered an opportunity to view the footage of the incident to determine if any of them can identify the individuals in the video footage. Based on reviewing the footage and speaking with the impacted students, UCO is not aware of any statements or threats being made during the interaction."
Still, students say that the security video should be better utilized to deter harassment like they say they experienced.
“They have the video … but it’s like a double standard to choose if they want to pursue to the perpetrators or not,” Lu said. “They say that they would use these security cameras to protect students – protect our community. But it seems like [they’re] not actually 100% sticking to what they say.”