Fifteen University Senators are proposing a resolution calling on SU administration to refrain from retaliating against protesters. This comes as a sit-in at The Barnes Center at The Arch enters its 32nd hour.

Racist graffiti against black and Asian students was reported to the Department of Public Safety on Nov. 7. SU did not release statement until Monday, after Renegade Magazine and The Daily Orange published reports of the graffiti. Students on the fourth and six floors were told to not record the floor meetings that followed it.

Hundreds of students protested at a sit-in on Wednesday. It started at 10:30 a.m., and is still going as of 7 p.m. on Thursday. Since then, racist graffiti toward Asian people was found in the Physics building Wednesday evening, and the outline of a swastika was etched into snow across the street from the 505 on Walnut, near a Jewish temple and the Winnick Hillel Center for Jewish Life.

Jackie Orr, a professor of sociology and one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, walked into The Barnes Center just before 7 p.m. and handed out sheets detailing the resolution.

“A number of faculty think the conduct you’re engaged in is some of the most righteous, ethical, collective student conduct that we’ve seen since the last time,” Orr said to the students at the sit-in.

Senators will vote on the proposal during next Wednesday’s senate meeting.

The proposal includes the following:

• Deplores incidents of racist, hateful and exclusionary acts against members of the SU community.
• Expresses solidarity for protests who are rallying around the motto #NotAgainSU. “We applaud our students for taking the initiative in meeting the challenges facing our community, and express our solidarity with their efforts.”
• Recognizes the need for all members of the SU community. to “reflect on this situation and act according to our conscience.”
• Calls on university administration to refrain from retaliating against protesters and to “negotiate in good faith with our students.”
• Calls on SU to inform the community in a “timely and accurate manner” when hateful incidents occur.

The Democratizing Knowledge Collective, a project focused on confronting privilege in university’s, released a statement on Friday expressing solidarity with the protesters. The statement condemned the graffiti in Day Hall and the Physics Building, and called the acts a continuation of institutional and structural racism that exists on the SU campus.

“The student who are protesting in the Barnes Center are justifiably concerned about their safety on this campus, which affects them literally where they live,” the statement reads. “Like the students we believe that the University’s focus should be on those conducting these vile acts, not the students who are targeted by them.”

Published on November 14, 2019 at 7:37 pm

Contact Gabe: gkstern@syr.edu | @gabestern326