Chancellor Kent Syverud choked up while at the podium in Maxwell Auditorium.

Addressing the University Senate on Wednesday, a few hours before #NotAgainSU protesters demanded that he resign, Syverud recounted his own experiences with racism.

“I spent six years of my life publicly fighting to permit affirmative action in higher education admission based on race,” said Syverud, who was the dean of Vanderbilt University Law School over 20 years ago. “I did this while raising a mixed-race family in the South.

“My kids were threatened. My wife (Ruth Chen) was subjected to many racial epithets. Our car tires were slashed. My kid’s dog was shot. There was little investigation. Those responsible were never found.”

The chancellor’s remarks were just the start of an emotional, two-hour long Senate meeting in which Syracuse University faculty, staff, students and administrators demanded action after a string of 12 racist and anti-Semitic incidents rocked SU’s campus and drew scrutiny from state and federal investigators.

“We’re still not getting better at handling these issues,” said Sharif Bey, a professor in arts education and teaching and leadership. “Hate spreads … it’s like wildfire. Like a rash.”

“I’m here today to speak purely as an ally for my students of color, my international students, and some of my Jewish students, all of whom I’ve spoken with,” said Bill Werde, director of the Bandier program. “They’ve lost confidence. They have no confidence and no trust in this administration.”

“We need more vice chancellors, more provosts etc. of color,” said English professor Coran Klaver. “That would really transform this university.”

At times on Wednesday, Senate attendees agreed on issues raised in the wake of the incidents. Other times they did not.

Sociology professor Jackie Orr told senators she wanted to introduce a word to their discussions: Refusal. She said SU hadn’t made an incompetent mistake in its inadequate response to past concerns of racism at the university. Administrators had simply refused to enact change, she said.

Bea González disagreed. González, SU’s vice president for community engagement, who helped lead negotiations with THE General Body in 2014, said the administration’s response hasn’t always been perfect.

“But,” she continued, “to me, we have spent the last four years doing what we could, as an organization, as a leadership team, implementing the things we promised.

“Do I think there’s any intentional cover-up happening on this campus by this administration? I do not buy that for one second.”

THE General Body, a coalition of more than 50 student organizations, held a sit-in at Crouse-Hinds Hall for 18 days in late 2014 due to concerns over a range of issues at SU, including cuts to the POSSE scholarship program.

The disagreements didn’t stop there at the meeting.

Syverud at one point said it appeared that reports of a white supremacist manifesto being sent to students via AirDrop in Bird Library late Monday night were “probably a hoax.”

#NotAgainSU member Tayla Myree took issue with Syverud’s assessment. The chancellor had not referenced Greekrank.com. A PDF of the manifesto, a 74-page screed written by the suspected Christchurch mosques shooter, had been posted on a discussion board on the website.

“I have personally reported what we saw on that forum,” Myree told senators. “It’s not false information. I have screenshots of that post. … It’s not a hoax.”

Senators and students spent almost 50 minutes debating a resolution called “Sense of the Senate,” which partially called on SU to cancel “face-to-face” classes for the rest of the week.

Tina Nabatchi, a public administration and international affairs professor, argued that the university shouldn’t cave in to fear. Nabatchi said it would be better if the Senate just recommended that professors decide on their own whether to cancel class.

History and political science professor Margaret Susan Thompson, though, said that the Senate voting to say it supports #NotAgainSU and others who feel unsafe on campus is not the same as actually supporting them.

“We say we support people, but we don’t have any concrete way of so doing? It’s like talk is cheap,” Thompson said. “I think it really undermines the entire purpose of this.”

The resolution eventually passed. Dozens of people applauded.

Some issues brought up Wednesday drew little conflict.

Jiayi Zhang, a graduate student senator, asked Syverud if the recent launch of the contentious “Free Speech Working Group” would have a counterproductive effect and “encourage hate speech” on campus. The group was formed in October and charged with reviewing SU’s free speech and civil discourse policies.

Three members of the university’s Board of Trustees are on the group, including former chair Richard Thompson.

The chancellor said that “in light of recent events” he doesn’t think the group “should be doing much” for now. He also announced that more faculty will be appointed to the group.

Senator Jack Wilson, a former president of the Graduate Student Organization, asked if the Office of the Registrar could do anything to assist students with registration issues who are at the Barnes Center at The Arch, where #NotAgainSU has staged its sit-in since Nov. 13.

“Yes … Chris Johnson is in the room. The registrar will find a solution,” outgoing Provost Michele Wheatly replied. Johnson is the associate provost for academic affairs.

But near the end of the public forum portion of the meeting, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Keith Alford took the microphone and stood up from where he was sitting on the floor.

He said there’s still much work to be done.

“It’s not that our students have to educate us, we need to educate ourselves. That’s exactly what we needed to do yesterday. All right? Not today, but yesterday,” Alford said, looking around the room.

Published on November 21, 2019 at 3:09 am

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek