Syracuse University suspended more than 30 students on Tuesday after student protesters staged a sit-in at a university building and refused to leave. The students had been protesting the administration allegedly being too slow to respond to “racist acts.”
More than 30 students at Syracuse University — who were protesting their school for lacking a response to acts of “racism”— were suspended by university officials after occupying an administration building and refusing to leave, according to a report by Inside Higher Ed.
The report added that there was no specific incident that caused the protest this past week — other than the students being frustrated with the university’s alleged slow response to “racist acts” committed last semester.
The organizer of the multicultural student coalition, known as #NotAgainSU, insists that the student protesters are being punished while perpetrators of “hate crimes” are “still roaming campus freely,” according to Inside Higher Ed.
“There is no reason to punish peaceful protesters, especially when there is no punishment for the acts that made them feel so deeply unsafe,” read a petition being circulated among the students. “#NotAgainSU has a list of reasonable demands that have not been met.”
The students had first protested last November by staging a sit-in inside another building on campus for seven days in a row.
This time, however, school officials were not willing to tolerate such behavior, and suspended the students who were found still occupying the building on Tuesday, for violating a campus disruption policy.
“The students were advised, on multiple occasions, that they would need to move their demonstration to spaces on campus that are open past 9 p.m.,” read a statement from the school’s interim vice chancellor and provost John Liu.
Liu added that university officials had also informed student protesters that failure to do so would inevitably result in “an immediate interim suspension.”
The statement continued:
We offered alternative options to our students so they could continue their protests. They were invited to continue their demonstration overnight in Bird Library, which is open 24 hours, and then return to Crouse-Hinds Hall in the morning when the building reopened. We also offered to store their personal items in the building overnight so they wouldn’t have to move it to another space on campus. They declined the invitation.
“Students are free to leave the building at any time,” added Liu. “In fact, they have been asked, on multiple occasions, to leave the building. Any claim that students are being held against their will is patently false.”
“To be clear: no students are being suspended for protesting, but for violations of the building occupation policy,” the statement asserted.
The organizer of the protest said that it was their intent to disrupt the Syracuse University campus, according to Insider Higher Ed.
“Change does not come to campus unless occupation like this happens,” said the #NotAgainSU organizer. “A protest is an active disruption. That’s intentional — we knew what we were doing.”
The students are also dismayed over the protest not panning out the same way it did last semester, when university officials had taken the time to negotiate with the protesters and were more tolerant of their behavior.
“We’ve already met with administrators — we’ve met with the Board of Trustees,” the organizer added. “We’re not playing with administrators going forward.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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