Editor’s note: The following article was reported in Central European Standard Time.

MADRID, Spain — Students and a professor at Syracuse University’s center here have used the “N-word” at least four times publicly during classes over the course of the past nine days.

In an email sent Tuesday evening to members of the Madrid program, Director Dieter Kuehl said students have come forward to the center’s administration with concerns about the use of the N-word during classroom assignments and discussions.

“All of us at Syracuse Madrid would like to assure all of you, and especially students of color, that you are valued, and that we denounce racial slurs such as the ‘N-word’ absolutely and unequivocally,” Kuehl said at a “community dialogue” held at the center on Wednesday morning.

At the event, which SU Madrid hosted, students were encouraged to ask questions and share how they felt about the use of the N-word in classes. A senior adviser to Chancellor Kent Syverud and Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly, Cathryn Newton, and SU’s Interim Chief Diversity Officer, Keith Alford, video chatted with students at the forum.

Kuehl, Assistant Director of Academics Amalia Yrizar and Director of Student Life Ariadne Ferro Bajuelo hosted the event. Any student who had a language class at 9 a.m. Wednesday — which is more than 100 people, in total — were required to attend.

Ferro Bajuelo, who has spoken to several students of color offended by the language, said at the forum she has never encountered events like these and doesn’t know how to handle them. She said she was “at a loss” as to how to help students through this, so she called the Office of Multicultural Affairs, upon a student’s suggestion. Alford said SU wants to make sure everyone feels valued and no one feels pain, and that SU’s central administration is working on ways to promote inclusivity.

About 100 students gathered for the “community dialogue” on Wednesday morning to address the use of the N-word at SU’s center in Madrid. Rori Sachs | Senior Staff Videographer

“One thing I would like to say is that it is so important that we all appreciate the fact that we are striving together to form a campus that is cohesive, whether that campus is abroad or that campus is right here in Syracuse, New York,” Alford said. “But the N-word itself, just as other racial slurs associated with other racial groups all over the world, has no place in this society.”

In a center-wide email from Kuehl sent Wednesday evening, the director announced that the Madrid program would be implementing a slate of initiatives “over the next several days” to address concerns, including by creating a “student task force” and hosting experts on diversity and inclusion from SU’s Main Campus. Other initiatives noted by Kuehl included scheduling more “dialogue sessions” to discuss topics like intersectionality, among other things.

During a sexuality in Spain class last Tuesday, an American SU student said the N-word while recounting a high school experience of a boy would who would use the N-word, according to junior Nileidy De la Cruz, a member of the class. In a class about travel journalism last Monday, a professor asked students to read aloud a passage from “The Great Railway Bazaar” by Paul Theroux, said De la Cruz, who is also a member of that class. According to De la Cruz, an American SU student in the class said the N-word aloud while reading the passage.

After the N-word was used in those two classes last week, Kuehl sent an email in English to the Madrid center’s student body and staff and a separate email in Spanish to the staff. In the email to students, Kuehl said SU’s Madrid center was collaborating with organizations on the university’s Main Campus — such as the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Office of Equal Opportunity, Inclusion and Resolution Services — to brainstorm a course of action to address concerns. Additionally, Yrizar held a staff meeting in which she explained that the N-word was unacceptable, Ferro Bajuelo said Wednesday.

Three days after Kuehl’s Friday emails were sent, in a separate class on the history of women in Spain, a Spanish professor was trying to explain the differences between the inoffensive Spanish word sometimes used to describe black people in the country, “negro,” and the N-word, but then said the N-word twice, according to junior Tyra Jean, who is in the class. Jean added that a student in that class also repeated the word once.

“The utterance of the N-word is deeply harmful, and there’s no place at Syracuse University for behavior or language that degrades any individual or group’s race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, disability or religious beliefs,” Kuehl said in the Friday email to students and staff.

Kuehl sent a follow-up email Tuesday announcing that Alford and Newton would be joining students for the community dialogue — they did so via video chat. Kuehl also expressed support for students of color.

In interviews with The Daily Orange, students of color said they were becoming increasingly angry and frustrated with the use of racist language in classes, regardless of whether it was directed at someone, read aloud from a book or used in other ways.

“It’s 2019. Ignorance is not valid as an excuse at this point,” said Tatiana Hernandez-Mitchell, a junior studying in Madrid.

Hernandez-Mitchell, and other students — in interviews before the Wednesday community dialogue — said SU’s administration wasn’t working hard enough to combat ignorance, especially among staff and in the university’s abroad orientation process.

After arriving in Madrid, students are required to participate in a two-day orientation, during which they learn about cultural differences between the United States and Spain. There are also several pre-departure orientation videos and quizzes students must complete before arriving in Madrid.

The orientation doesn’t include preparation for addressing racial bias or discrimination, according to students. Junior Jett Cloud, a political science major studying in Madrid, said on Tuesday the SU Abroad program should amend its orientation to prepare students for racism in Spain.

“They actually have to properly prepare us for this (racism),” he said. Regarding the decision to study abroad, Cloud said, talking to students of color about the racism they will likely face “is the only ethical thing to do for kids to be prepared to make the choice of ‘OK, I’m comfortable doing this or I’m not comfortable doing this,’” he said.

Cloud said the racism he has experienced in Spain is far different than what he encounters in the U.S. Cloud described the behavior in Spain as “old-timey racism” — he sometimes feels like he’s in the 1960s, Cloud said. In Spain, there have been physical spaces — like clubs and bars — where Cloud wasn’t let in because he’s black, he said.

Jean on Tuesday said she shouldn’t have to Google “how to be black in Madrid” before the program starts. She added that SU should warn students about prejudice in Spain before students go abroad.

“Even if it doesn’t make the program look good, they need to warn the students (about) what they’re getting themselves into … It’s like you’re blindsided,” Jean said.

Cloud said that, even if he was told about the racism he would encounter in Spain, he still probably would have chosen to study abroad in Madrid. But Cloud added that SU needs to say something like, “When you go abroad, you will face racism in ways that are different, and some will be more shocking to you than your experience in America.” He added that if some students choose not to study abroad because of this type of disclosure, then that’s to their own benefit.

The center in Madrid enrolls more than 150 students, most of whom are from SU. Some students, though, are studying at the center from other universities. Rori Sachs | Senior Staff Videographer

Hernandez-Mitchell and Jean both said they probably wouldn’t have chosen to study abroad in Madrid had they known about racism in the city or that they’d have to hear the N-word in classes.

“At the price of understanding new cultures, learning the language of Spanish, learning all these things about this place, I’m losing my mental health because of racism,” Hernandez-Mitchell said.

Faculty and staff should be required to undergo some sort of cultural competency or bias and sensitivity training at the center, Jean also said, especially since American students attend a mandatory orientation to learn about Spanish culture while abroad.

Jean said her class on Monday, during which a professor used the N-word, was a 400-level women’s and gender studies class taught in Spanish. Even though the N-word wasn’t directed at anyone, Jean said she felt targeted. After the class, Jean was so overwhelmed she started crying.

The professor tried to talk to her in the hallway after the class, but when Jean said she didn’t want to speak to the professor at that moment, the professor insisted and tried to explain to Jean that as a Spaniard, she didn’t understand the impact of the word, according to Jean. Jean said she told the professor that in the U.S., if she had said the word while teaching a class, she’d be fired.

“If a social science professor doesn’t understand intersectionality, how come they are qualified to teach a 400-level social science, women and gender studies class?” Jean asked administrators at the community dialogue Wednesday. She said English being their second or third language is “not an excuse.”

On Wednesday, Kuehl said he had explicitly told the professor not to talk about the N-word. But he also defended the professor, saying she is qualified to teach women’s and gender studies. Jean, and several other students at the community dialogue, including Astia Innis — a junior at Williams College studying in Madrid through SU’s program — said action should be taken against the professor.

Innis said that although she has experienced racism at Williams College, it is much more subtle compared to what she has seen at SU’s program in Madrid.

Cloud said the professors need cultural competency training conducted by a person of color so they won’t be as ignorant about racism and bias-related language. Cloud and Jean also both said that, since the professors are teaching American students, they should know the basics of what’s offensive or what will make students uncomfortable.

Jean, Hernandez-Mitchell, De la Cruz and Cloud are only some of the students angry about the use of the N-word.

Junior Marceli Rocha said that, every day, a group of students of color in Madrid talk about situations in which they’ve faced racism — those incidents range from receiving long stares on the metro, to getting denied entry into a bar, to hearing the N-word in class.

Often, SU Madrid program officials have said it’s part of the culture in Spain to stare or be rude, Jean said, though she doesn’t believe that’s an excuse. The professor who used the N-word said she didn’t know how powerful the word was because she’s only ever lived in Spain, Jean added. But Jean still doesn’t think that’s acceptable.

“Racism is not your culture, discrimination is not your culture,” Hernandez-Mitchell said.

De la Cruz said that, in the class during which a student read the N-word from a passage, she was so shocked that she got up and left the room. De la Cruz later emailed the professor and said the word made her very uncomfortable. He emailed her back and later made an announcement in class saying he wouldn’t assign the reading anymore, De la Cruz added.

Cloud said SU’s Madrid program is ill-equipped to handle incidents of bias, but that it’s ultimately the SU central administration’s responsibility to make sure there are people who can listen to and understand the concerns of students of color.

“Syracuse University is responsible for making sure the university as a whole, whether it be in upstate New York or in Europe somewhere … they’re doing well,” Cloud said.

Cloud, and several other students of color, said during the forum they don’t believe “community dialogues” do much good to fix actual problems.

“I do believe that together we can make this a better university, and we can certainly make this a better world,” Alford said in response to Cloud’s concerns at the community dialogue. “It will take time. I just ask you to hang in there.”

Newton, during the forum, said SU has been working on a program for about three years to educate faculty about diversity and inclusion. She said the university has already reached 800 faculty members through this initiative, and SU will also be implementing faculty diversity, inclusion and equity workshops in its centers around the world. It’s been a “nearly full-time effort,” she said.

Ferro Bajuelo at the forum said the events over the past nine days have demonstrated that SU’s Madrid center has to do more to support students of color. During the forum, several white students added that white people need to act as allies, and if they’re saying the “N-word,” they need to do better.

“We feel alone and we literally only have each other to really vent to because nobody truly can understand or even wants to vouch for us,” Jean said. “At the end of the day, we’re students and we just happen to be students of color. And that’s the reason we’re being treated this way. We’re not acting any differently, we’re just literally existing.”

This post has been updated with appropriate style.

Published on March 13, 2019 at 3:05 pm

Contact Catherine: ccleffer@syr.edu | @ccleffert