Get the latest Syracuse news delivered right to your inbox.
Subscribe to our newsletter here.

Recently, the Syracuse University American Association of University Professors convened to discuss assaults on academic freedom and free speech, where attendees expressed concern not only about disciplining our students for engaging in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last spring, but also our chapter’s silence on this matter. We are speaking out now.

Over the summer, the Syracuse University Office of Community Standards sent emails to seven students who participated in the GSE, alleging that they had committed violations of the Student Code of Conduct. In August, the Office of Student Experience’s executive team sent protesters a letter asking them to relocate due to SU’s graduation ceremonies happening that week or they would face disciplinary action. While the university took no other action at the time, students who didn’t move away from the quad were deemed in violation of the Student Code of Conduct.

We wish to underscore that the student code as a university policy is, frankly, “violated” often. We are by no means saying there should be more enforcement, but rather calling attention to the fact that the interpretation of the student code and other university policies lies solely with the administration, and in this case, was enforced selectively and problematically. These issues require urgent attention, including working with faculty in shared governance on ways to make the student code, along with its interpretations and enforcements, more fair and consistent in keeping with our educational mission.

Letters to The Daily Orange brought forward specific concerns about these seven students being specifically targeted and why, including the fact that one of these students was a legal observer who was not protesting in the GSE. Questions have been raised about the process for pursuing these disciplinary actions against students and the negative effect the situation has had on students’ right to vocalize their opinions on matters of global importance.

Given that the protests were peaceful and the students left the premises after graduation was over, we question why SU took this punitive path. Why were only certain students targeted? In what ways were faculty involved and included in the conduct proceedings? What message is being sent to undergraduate and graduate students about their right to protest and exercise their free speech rights, especially at a university that sees itself as promoting active and engaged global citizenship?

It’s important to remember an earlier time on the SU campus when students were protesting the Vietnam War, as many students did across the United States. As protests ramped up against the war, the SU-AAUP, in conjunction with the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, issued the Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students. We return to that 1967 statement for its historical value in stating that college students should be subject to the same free speech rights as others in this nation:

“College and university students are both citizens and members of the academic community. As citizens, students should enjoy the same freedom of speech, peaceful assembly and right of petition that other citizens enjoy and, as members of the academic community, they are subject to the obligations that accrue to them by virtue of this membership. Faculty members and administration officials should ensure that institutional powers are not employed to inhibit such intellectual and personal development of students as is often promoted by their exercise of the rights of citizenship both on and off campus.”

The SU-AAUP reaffirms this call to recognize that students, as future leaders and current contributors to this society, should be encouraged to assemble and peacefully protest without fear of selectively and ideologically being suspended or threatened. The university backed off from using these tactics with other protest movements in the past, so we ask: why not now?

Eileen E. Schell submitted this letter on behalf of the SU-AAUP and can be reached at eeschell@syr.edu.

Published on November 18, 2024 at 10:17 pm