Chancellor Kent Syverud has lifted the interim suspensions filed against #NotAgainSU protesters staging a sit-in at Crouse-Hinds Hall.

Syverud announced his decision at an emotional University Senate meeting on Wednesday, as faculty and students demanded that he and other high-ranking administrators better handle the demonstration.

“These students are afraid they will be arrested,” Syverud said. “Enough. I am not going to let students be arrested and forced out.”

He said that members of #NotAgainSU, a Black student-led movement, can stay in the building and that he has directed the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities to drop its pending conduct cases against them. OSRR had accused #NotAgainSU organizers of violating Syracuse University’s Campus Disruption Policy late Monday night.

SU is “on the edge,” Syverud said, and community members need to take a step back for the university to continue addressing issues of diversity and inclusion raised last November.

“Some of the students in Crouse-Hinds Hall are seniors,” the chancellor said. “We should all want them to be able to go to class and graduate. I want that. I want us all to remember that as a starting point.”

Syverud, though, did add a caveat. His “discretion” can only go so far, he said, and “at some point” he believes that violations of the Campus Disruption Policy should be adjudicated through the Code of Student Conduct system.

But that time is not now, Syverud said.

“I believe we should give more time to this process,” he said. It’s unclear if the chancellor was specifically referring to #NotAgainSU protesters when discussing his thoughts on adjudication. A university spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter.

#NotAgainSU began occupying Crouse-Hinds on Monday at noon. The demonstration is part of the group’s ongoing protests of SU’s handling of over 26 racist, anti-Semitic and bias-related incidents that have occurred at or near SU since early November.

SU officials placed more than 30 #NotAgainSU organizers under interim suspension early Tuesday morning for remaining in Crouse-Hinds past closing, allegedly violating the Campus Disruption Policy. Syverud said 23 students were protesting in the building as of Wednesday.

During his remarks, Syverud also provided a few updates on the bias-related incidents reported last year, announcing that SU has identified and punished some perpetrators, including during the spring semester.

But most of the Senate’s discussion revolved around #NotAgainSU’s second sit-in.

Senator Crystal Bartolovich asked the chancellor how SU’s “educational mission” had been threatened during the protest.

“The onus is on the university to demonstrate that the ‘educational mission’ has been interrupted,” she said. Bartolovich was a member of the Working Group on Free Speech created in 2015, which recommended that the university implement its free speech policies “in their least restricted form.”

Syverud, in response, said he thinks the “educational mission” reference in the working group’s recommendations also means SU must consider safety issues and the fire code when addressing campus protests.

“(The fire code) does require paying attention to the number of people in the space,” he said. “I think that’s the best answer I can give you at the moment.”

Religion professor Biko Gray, who is not a senator, began to cry as he spoke to Syverud. Gray said that Black Americans have historically been labeled as “disruptive” while fighting for racial equality.

“Help me to understand how you can name something as diversity on the one hand,” Gray said, “and brutally and structurally and institutionally and physically repress these babies on the other.”

Syverud told Gray that his substantive point was deep and that he understands the concern over the use of the word “disruption.”

“All I can say is I think I agree,” Syverud said.

Published on February 19, 2020 at 4:56 pm

Contact Sam: sfogozal@syr.edu | @SamOgozalek