Though the Department of Public Safety became aware of the hate crime in Day Hall last Thursday, Chancellor Kent Syverud was missing in action until Tuesday when he finally addressed the issue in an email sent to the student body. His email came a day later than Vice President of the Student Experience Robert Hradsky’s, who first detailed the issue to the student body.

Once again, Chancellor Syverud responded a day late and a dollar short. The Chancellor’s statement was far too similar to responses to hate crimes in the past. He condemned the act, he apologized that the administration did not move faster, he expressed his disappointment with the university’s inadequate response, he described his plans to implement change and he promised to do better next time around.

How many next times will there be, Chancellor?

Syracuse University has played host to four high-profile racial incidents in the past three years. While the Day Hall perpetrator’s identity remains unknown, one thing is abundantly clear: The chancellor’s claim of commitment to providing a safe and welcoming campus has lost whatever credibility it had. The administration’s bottom line is profit, and this habitual prioritizing of money over students is painfully evident in the administration’s initial attempts to downplay the hate crime at Day Hall.

Early in the semester, Syverud expressed his concerns about the lack of true free speech on SU’s campus. The chancellor stated his belief that students should be able to say things that make other students “profoundly uncomfortable,” a necessary component of a free exchange of ideas.

A true advocate of free speech — the person Chancellor Syverud purports to be — would have no difficulty denouncing such a hateful act. Anyone truly concerned with free speech on campus would recognize the hate crime at Day Hall to be a deterrence to the safe and open exchange of ideas on campus.

Syverud, had he provided a swift and adequate response to the hate crime, could have repudiated this as an unacceptable example of hateful rhetoric which is not protected by free speech.

The chancellor isn’t the sole authority figure employing unconvincing rhetoric to respond to this incident. Gov. Andrew Cuomo condemned the racist incident in a speech from Syracuse Hancock International Airport.

His support for the victimized communities, however, is comically out of touch. Not even a month before the events at Day Hall, the governor himself was facing extreme backlash for his use of the N-word in a live radio broadcast. It’s ironic to hear the governor condemn the hateful use of a slur which he himself uttered just weeks before.

The administration has suggested increasing diversity education for both students and incoming faculty members, but maybe the ones who truly need to review these concepts are the authority figures themselves.

Patrick McCarthy is a senior creative writing and American history major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at pmcca100@syr.edu. He can be followed on Twitter at @pmcopinion.

Published on November 13, 2019 at 11:33 pm