In late January, Brown released the preliminary results of the 2025–26 Campus Climate Survey. The survey was administered to undergraduate, graduate and medical students last fall, as required by the University’s July agreement with the federal government.
The Herald spoke with students to learn more about their feelings on the survey outcomes.
The survey found that some minority students feel less comfortable reporting harassment and discrimination than their peers. Respondents who identify as Black, multiracial, LGBTQ, transgender and Muslim, as well as Jewish undergraduates, reported experiencing harassment or discrimination at Brown at higher rates than their peers, The Herald previously reported.
In addition, nearly 85% of undergraduates and 76% of graduate and medical students feel a sense of belonging and satisfaction with their decision to attend Brown. Around 67% of undergraduates and 60% of graduate and medical students reported feeling free to express their political or social views on campus.
Of the 10 students The Herald spoke with, many noted that they were not surprised by the survey’s findings.
Bryson Boone ’27 said he was not “entirely surprised,” referencing similar results from institutional surveys at colleges across the nation that showed that marginalized students tended to feel “less safe or less confident.”
“It does highlight that not all community members feel equally protected or heard, which is something that the University and students need to keep working on,” he said, adding that he “appreciate(s)” that “these issues are being documented transparently.”
Giuseppe Canta ’26 said he read the results as “generally optimistic.” But “it seems clear that certain groups specifically feel less comfortable and that needs to be addressed.” He added that it could be helpful for the University to communicate with student and advocacy groups to develop a response to the concerns brought by the results.
Willow Stewart ’26 said she doesn’t “expect much from Brown.” She resonates with student reports of discrimination, a lack of support and “not always feeling like Black and Brown identities are celebrated” the same as other identities, she said. “Being a Black student here, I align very much with what other Black students were saying.”
An international student from a country in the Middle East — who was granted anonymity for fear of visa rejection — said that her experience as a Muslim student and those of other Muslim students that she knows are in line with the survey results.
“Visibly Muslim” students, such as hijabis, are familiar with “a level of hatred or discrimination” that she hasn’t “heard anyone talk about taking action against,” she said.
“I’ve been a part of a lot of these conversations, and I know that a lot of my friends, or a lot of people in the community, don’t feel comfortable reporting that,” she added, noting that she doesn’t “necessarily think that it’s the University’s fault.”
She added that she was “glad” to see how the survey’s questions addressed both antisemitism and Islamophobia, noting “the school hasn’t been really addressing, in any kind of way, Islamophobia happening on campus,” she said. “Especially with the Israel-Palestine conflict; there were two sides of students being affected, but really only one was talked about.”
In an email to The Herald, Rachel Vidomlanski ’26 wrote that based on her experience in the Jewish community at Brown, she believes the survey results indicate that student support helps students feel more “comfortable reporting incidents as they occur.”
“Within the Hillel Jewish community, there has been a lot of student-to-student encouragement to report any antisemitic encounters that people witness or experience,” she wrote, citing QR codes posted in the building and in group chats that link to the incident reporting forms.
Multiple students noted the possible impact of federal actions — such as the July agreement to restore Brown’s research funding — on the results of the survey.
In a message to The Herald, Eliot Waldvogel ’29 wrote that he “found the slightly lower percentage of students who feel comfortable expressing their views intriguing,” noting that Brown students have “a reputation” for being “left-leaning.”
But he wrote that “left-leaning views” have seen a “chilling effect” under the Trump administration. “I wonder if this has also affected the lower rates of students who feel comfortable reporting harassment.”
Levi Kim ’29 wrote in a message to The Herald that he was “skeptical of the accuracy of the responses.”
As a transgender student, Kim wrote that he was “hesitant” to take the survey due to the agreement with the Trump administration. He added that this sentiment was shared by his transgender and gender-diverse friends, “the majority of which either didn’t take the survey or omitted their trans identity.”
“There’s still a pervasive fear among trans students around coming forward about their experiences, which is likely underestimated in the campus climate survey,” he wrote.
Kim wrote that he hopes the University takes the survey results as a “wake-up call.”
According to a Today@Brown announcement from Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Matthew Guterl, the University has established a plan of action to respond to the results of the survey.
This includes expanding required campus trainings — including the training on nondiscrimination and training on social media harassment and discrimination — as well as hiring more staff for the Office of Equity Compliance and Reporting while expanding awareness of the office’s work.
“We intend to advance all these actions swiftly,” Guterl wrote.
He added that the action plan will be expanded upon following full analysis of the data from Rankin Climate — the external vendor that conducted the survey — and the completion of additional focus groups and surveys.
Avie Marsh ’29 thinks the University should respond with “increased support for minority students and affinity housing.”
She said the decision to move program and theme housing to a lottery system “made a lot of minority students feel like they had less of a chance to be in a space that supported them.”
Marsh believes that the University should return program housing decisions to program leaders.
“We are standardizing our processes to make housing more equitable and transparent for all students, so everyone has the same opportunity to access specialized communities,” Assistant Vice President for Residential and Community Living Brenda Ice wrote in an email to The Herald. “The ways in which students express interest and are assigned to specialized housing has changed, but what makes these communities vibrant will not change.”
She added that “specialized community leaders are being engaged to help shape how the new system works in practice” and that ResLife has worked to “develop strategies that would allow (student leaders’) considerations about the community to be incorporated into the housing selection process.”
Alexa Theodoropoulos ’27 said that changing the survey results “would require changes in University culture, which happens over time and isn’t necessarily controlled by the administration alone,” they said.
Vidomlanski wrote, “it is crucial that the University continues to make concerted efforts to encourage respectful engagement with people of all backgrounds, and to enforce real consequences when these standards are not met.”
Rachel Wicker is a senior staff writer covering affinity and identity. She is from Athens, Georgia and plans on concentrating in English on the nonfiction track and International and Public Affairs. Outside of writing, she enjoys reading books of any genre and doing yoga.
