Chancellor Kent Syverud on Sunday morning responded to The Daily Orange’s publication of a video on Saturday showing people in Theta Tau’s house miming the sexual assault of a person with disabilities.

Syverud, in a campus-wide email sent at about noon, said he was concerned that the continuing exposure to video content of “hateful videos” is causing “further hurt and distress” to the university’s community.

The chancellor said the video published on Saturday is part of the evidence SU received that led to its decision to initially suspended the professional engineering fraternity on Wednesday. Theta Tau was permanently expelled from campus Saturday. The university “immediately” referred that evidence “for potential criminal investigation to local law enforcement and for student judicial proceedings.”

The video published by The D.O. on Saturday “is not the only evidence, and there are other videos as well,” Syverud said.

 

“We do not reveal evidence in an ongoing potential criminal and judicial investigation so as not to prejudice that investigation and so as not to enable those being investigated to escape responsibility for all of their actions,” Syverud said. “For this reason, I have been constrained in what I could say to date about this incident.

“I do not know what videos or other evidence the Daily Orange or other media may possess, and the media are not necessarily subject to the same constraints as I am in releasing information.”

Syverud said he will be “consistent” in his response to the second video. He asked that the SU community reject all that the video represents, and said there is no tolerance for the behavior the video depicts.

In the recording, which was obtained by The D.O., a person sits in a rolling chair as three other people block him from view and appear to mimic a scene where they force him to perform oral sex.

“He’s drooling out of his mouth, because he’s retarded in a wheelchair,” one person says. “So the hole is already very lubricated.”

In the email, Syverud said words and behaviors in the second video are “appalling and disgusting on many intersecting grounds.” A link to a statement from Diane Wiener, director of the university’s Disability Cultural Center, was also included in Syverud’s email.

“In what is an anathema to all that disability activists have striven for at Syracuse and elsewhere, Theta Tau’s video is not only a representation that demeans, dehumanizes and objectifies disabled people, it does so by utilizing toxic masculinity, homophobia, racism and other forms of systemic oppression and violence to accomplish its strategy, hiding behind the false narrative of ‘humor,’ and ‘boys will be boys,’” Wiener said.

Syverud also said that he and several other high-ranking university officials, including Department of Public Safety Chief Bobbly Maldonado, will be on hand after the Hendricks Chapel Dean’s Convocation to “engage” with concerned university community members until 9:30 p.m. Sunday.

This is a developing story. Expect additional updates and reporting.

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MORE COVERAGE:

• SU chapter of Theta Tau says video depicts a ‘satirical sketch’
• Syverud: SU will start ‘top to bottom’ review of all Greek life policies, activities and culture
• Student Association leaders call for SU Greek life audit in wake of Theta Tau suspension
• Students protest Theta Tau videos outside Chancellor Kent Syverud’s house

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Published on April 22, 2018 at 12:14 pm

Contact Sam: [email protected] | @SamOgozalek