Universities possess the preeminent objective to educate young adults, not only in scholarly endeavors, but in a much larger sense, to mold productive and informed members of society. However, this noble goal is easily distorted by the personal agendas, no matter how vile, of power-seeking individuals involved.

Evidence of this is obvious through the incident that occurred last week at Syracuse University’s Day Hall where racist vandalism was found.

Even more disturbing than the actual offense that took place in a student residence hall, is how Syracuse University is choosing to respond.

Renegade Magazine, a black general interest magazine, posted on Instagram Sunday night: “Once notified of the actions, the Chief of DPS, the Chief Diversity Officer, the Dean of Students and an administrator told the residents on the floors to not spread any photos or videos of the incident … We can’t let them cover this up.”

Vice President of Student Experience, Robert Hradsky, emailed students on Monday night at about 5:30 p.m., four days after the university learned of the event. The email detailed what happened and how the university is seeking to help students directly impacted by the events.

Hradsky wrote that university officials “regret not communicating more broadly.” This statement is atrocious in the sense that it does not admit any fault regarding specifically how Syracuse University has conducted itself. The statement is thrown in randomly out of place in the email, almost as if an afterthought. People regret forgetting their jacket when it is cold outside. The university needs to do more than just regret its missteps handling this situation.

Chancellor Kent Syverud then apologized for Syracuse University’s response in a campus-wide email sent Tuesday morning, dedicating an entire paragraph to how he was “disappointed” in how the incident was initially handled. “It’s clear that the members of the leadership team should have communicated more swiftly and broadly,” he wrote.

Syracuse University attempted to downplay a horrible incident, got caught dumbfounded and is now trying to rectify the situation in a way to come out with dignity intact.

The amount of time that it took the SU to release a statement informing students about what happened is unacceptable. The issue with releasing a statement after it has been brought to light by the press is that instead of taking initiative to rectify the situation, it now appears that action was taken solely due to the attention that the event received from the press.

Syracuse University may be embarrassed — and rightfully so — by the revolting racist activities that have taken place on campus, but a great injustice is done in the prolonged time that it took Syracuse university to publicly acknowledge the event occurred.

Students have a right to feel safe, and it is impossible to feel safe in an environment that does not completely and immediately condemn behavior such as this. With Syracuse University’s failure to promptly address the situation, they risk condoning such hatred through their complicity. The Syracuse University community deserves much more.

Kailey Norusis is a freshman English literature and history major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at kmnorusi@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter @Knorusis.

Published on November 12, 2019 at 10:33 pm

Contact Kailey: kmnorusi@syr.edu