#NotAgainSU organizers called for continued negotiations with Syracuse University officials at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

The movement, led by Black students, has been occupying Crouse-Hinds Hall since Feb. 17 to protest the university’s handling of at least 32 racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic incidents that have occurred on or near Main Campus since early November.

Protesters met with SU officials four times last week to negotiate the movement’s revised demands. After Friday’s negotiation session ended without a resolution, Interim Provost John Liu announced Saturday that SU would end negotiations but provide other means for discussion.

#NotAgainSU organizers want university officials to meet with them to complete negotiations before spring break. SU announced less than an hour before the movement’s press conference that it will suspend on-campus classes until at least March 30 in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“This movement is not about isolated incidents of hate,” an organizer said. “The movement is about changing the systems of oppression that are upheld by the administration at this university.”

#NotAgainSU organizers said they are still working to decide whether or not the movement’s occupation of Crouse-Hinds will continue through spring break.

The transition to online classes will start at the end of the academic day Friday, said Chancellor Kent Syverud and Mike Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation, in a news release Tuesday.

Administrators should be able to meet with organizers and manage the university’s response to the virus at the same time, an organizer said.

“I think it’s concerning for a university that has as much senior administration as it does to not be able to multitask,” the organizer said.

Liu described last week’s negotiation sessions as complete in an SU News release. #NotAgainSU said in a later statement that Liu mischaracterized the negotiations and failed to provide sufficient explanations for the university’s response to its demands.

Organizers echoed that point at Tuesday’s press conference.

#NotAgainSU has three non-negotiable demands for administrators that have not yet been agreed to, including a campus-wide acknowledgment of the treatment of protesters in the opening days of the Crouse-Hinds occupation, organizers said.

The Department of Public Safety sealed off Crouse-Hinds the morning of Feb. 18, preventing outside food, medicine and resources from entering until the afternoon of Feb. 19. Organizers were allowed to leave at any time, university officials have said. SU provided lunch and dinner to organizers Feb. 18 and breakfast Feb. 19.

Protesters who had been suspended were afraid that they could be arrested when they left the building, the organizer said. The meals SU provided were contingent on protesters’ willingness to speak with administrators, they said.

“That’s part of the false narrative we wish the administration would stop pushing,” an organizer said.

The university also placed more than 30 #NotAgainSU organizers under interim suspension for remaining in Crouse-Hinds past the building’s closing Feb. 17. Syverud announced those suspensions had been lifted at a University Senate forum Feb. 19.

The movement is also still calling on SU to release a statement that recognizes the university’s role in perpetuating white supremacy, organizers said at the conference.

“Administration needs to acknowledge what they did, and they need to acknowledge why they did it,” said Ron McGuire, #NotAgainSU’s legal counsel. “And why they did it is two words: white supremacy.”

Organizers also demand that SU allow striking graduate students to return to their positions and to provide academic amnesty for protesters.

More than 100 graduate students and workers who identify as Black, indigenous and people of color, as well as international students, have been withholding their labor since Feb. 19 in support of #NotAgainSU.

Officials initially promised organizers that graduate students would have their current teaching assistantships only temporarily filled, but later said striking graduate students may be assigned to different classrooms when they return to work.

Academic amnesty would allow protesters, some of whom have missed up to four weeks of classes, to adjust back into the semester, organizers said.

“This is having financial ramifications for students, academic ramifications for students,” another organizer said.

Administrators said at last Wednesday’s negotiation meeting that they would encourage professors to allow protesters time to make up assignments. SU cannot provide protesters credit for their work in Crouse-Hinds, administrators said.

SU will continue to provide means for engagement with students, Liu said in his statement. None of the committees Liu referenced — including the Board of Trustees Special Committee on University Climate, Diversity and Inclusion — offer tangible decision-making power, #NotAgainSU organizers said at the press conference.

McGuire said students do not plan to take any legal action against SU. Organizers said they hope they can finish negotiating with administrators instead of taking their case to the courthouse.

“We would like to stop occupying this building,” an organizer said. “We would like to finish negotiations, and we want to move forward.”

Published on March 10, 2020 at 9:30 pm

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