A video of Hanna Strong, a Syracuse University women’s soccer team member, calling an unidentified person a “f*ggot-a** n*gger,” has sparked outrage in the SU community since it was posted to Instagram on Saturday.

Head coach Phil Wheddon indefinitely suspended the senior midfielder from the team hours after the video went viral on Twitter with the hashtag #SpeakUpSU. Many students expressed anger about Strong’s outburst, saying she should be held accountable for her actions and several student groups organized a campus meeting Saturday night to discuss appropriate responses to the video.

But while some people defended Strong and her right to free speech, SU officials were quick to condemn Strong’s words.

“This type of intolerant and hurtful language, focused on both race and sexual orientation, is not part of the culture we seek to foster among our student-athletes and it has no place at Syracuse University,” Director of Athletics Daryl Gross said in a statement on Saturday.

Chancellor Kent Syverud sent a statement to the campus community Sunday night, saying he believes this, and other less visible incidents, present a chance to have a civil and frank discussion. He said he’s asked Vice Chancellor and Provost Eric Spina and Dean of Student Affairs Rebecca Reed Kantrowitz to work with student leaders to arrange a forum for the community to discuss the issues raised as a result of the video. More information about the event will be made available soon.

The SU Department of Public Safety and the Office of Equal Opportunity, Inclusion and Resolution Services are currently investigating the incident, Kantrowitz said in a statement on Saturday. The results of the investigation will be immediately reported to the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities, she said.

While the first amendment protects Strong from any government action, SU is a private university that is not bound by the first amendment, said Roy Gutterman, director of the SU Tully Center for Free Speech.

“Any action will be university action, and the university is not a state actor,” Gutterman said. “It’s a private university and there’s really no first amendment issue here.”

He added that the university has its rights and its student code of conduct, and will have to determine whether Strong’s comments violated that code. But until all the factors of the situation are considered and the university takes action, the story isn’t over, Gutterman said.

“Speech like this occurs all the time,” he said. “Sometimes it’s done in hate, sometimes it’s done in jest, sometimes it’s done when someone’s not entirely all there. But we don’t know all the details of what happened here.”

Keeping an open mind until all the facts are out was one of the themes of a meeting on Saturday night in Goldstein Student Center. About 50 students packed into a classroom in Goldstein for about two hours to discuss their opinions on the Strong video and what should be done in response.

Ronald Taylor, a class marshal for the class of 2015, organized the meeting. Taylor said he saw students commenting on the video of Strong, retweeting her photo and spreading inaccurate information.

“I was compelled to get people to realize that I know we’re upset, but let’s calm down and let’s plan what action needs to be taken in a constructive way,” he said.

Taylor said there was about a two-hour turnaround between when he tweeted out an invitation to student organizations to attend the meeting and when the meeting took place. The invite notified students that there would be an open meeting to see how the groups could move forward and respond to the video.

After the meeting, Taylor compiled a list of discussion points and emailed them to Syverud. He said he will also be sending those points to Kantrowitz, the dean of student affairs.

Danielle Reed, the event and programming chair for the SU chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was in attendance along with other members of the group’s executive board. She said one major talking point at the meeting was that Strong’s comments are not exclusively a race issue, but rather an issue of identity.

“A lot of students wanted to make it a point to not necessarily focus on Hanna Strong herself and that situation, but use it as a call or reminder that this is a bigger issue,” Reed said.

Claudia Chen, a junior communication and rhetorical studies major, said multiple perspectives were shared during the meeting. Some people were trying to sort out the details of why Strong said what she did and wait for the facts, while others were looking at potential ways to act in response.

“It’s hard to try to come to one central thing that people want to see as a result of this because everyone has different opinions,” Chen said.

She added that the meeting brought up issues that those in attendance agreed existed, and said it was successful for an introductory meeting. But, she said there’s still more to be done, and that Strong’s comments can be used as a teachable moment for the campus.

“Whatever condition or state she was in, the racist and homophobic things she said were not OK,” Chen said. “It’s a really good way to start a conversation, not just about race or sexuality, but about the intersections of how those identities come together.”

Published on September 8, 2014 at 12:01 am

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