The incident that occurred last week at Day Hall reflects a much larger problem at the university. There are huge problems with how the university treated the incident, but it is more important to talk about where we go from here as a community.

Every year there is that one incident at Syracuse University where minority students feel as if they are under attack. We do not know if this is the incident for this year but it appears that it is. What happened in Day Hall is not a single incident — it is a reflection of the campus culture and university officials who do little or nothing to change it.

This university has stated that they are attempting to fix the racial issues that have occurred at SU, but they seem to be focusing more on their image than the wellbeing of this school. Transparency is key for SU to be able to limit and appropriately respond to these incidents.

It seems like this university wishes to play clean-up with these issues rather than take actual preventative measures against racism.

As a freshman at Syracuse, I took SEM 100. This class was supposed to ignite productive conversations about inclusivity, diversity and respect. But I know it was completely useless. This is the idea that the university will do the bare minimum to respond to these issues and actually never try to solve these problems.

Noah Estling is a freshman international relations and economics major. His column appears bi-weekly. He can be reached at [email protected]. He can be followed on Twitter @NoahEstling.