Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization unanimously passed a resolution supporting future student protest movements and condemning the hate crimes SU experienced in November.

GSO President Mirjavad Hashemi also announced the senate will support the #NotAgainSU movement and will make sure the protesters’ demands are implemented.

#NotAgainSU, a black student-led movement, protested the university’s response to a series of at least 16 racist, anti-Semitic and bias-related incidents that occurred on or near SU from Nov. 7 to Nov. 21. Chancellor Kent Syverud signed 16 of the movement’s 19 demands as written and recommended changes to the remaining three on Nov. 21.

The resolution comes after #NotAgainSU requested the GSO’s support for the movement’s sit-in at the Barnes Center at The Arch, which ended Nov 21. Prior to the resolution, GSO Senate members had participated in protests but had not collectively expressed support.

“The GSO firmly supports the First Amendment rights of students to advocate and debate without fear of reprisal,” the resolution states. “The GSO condemns in the strongest possible terms the acts of hate and terror that have taken place on this campus and those who engage in them.”

The resolution also states that the GSO Executive Board will provide immediate support to students engaging in protests. This may include ensuring members are present at night when a sit-in may be raided by police and calling on teaching assistants to participate, said Jack Wilson, co-chair of GSO’s committee on civic engagement.

The hate crimes and bias-related incidents constitute a direct attack on at least one-third of SU’s graduate student population, the resolution reads. It added that an attack on one member of the GSO is an attack on every member.

Other business

Members of two registered student organizations, Social Workers United and Religion Graduate Organization, pitched a concept for the Graduate Student Organization’s 150th anniversary celebration.

The celebration would include a speech from Oren Lyons, SU alumnus and faith keeper of the Onondaga Nation. The event would also feature traditional Haudenosaunee food and a performance from A Tribe Called Red, a music group from Canada.

Sarah Nahar, a member of the RGO, said the event will celebrate the struggles graduate students face in their academic career as well as their diversity. SU needs a gathering that can heal the campus after the November incidents, she said.

“Many of us have shown up to do this graduate work because there’s healing we want to do, internally, with our communities and with the world,” Nahar said. “That notion is common in Haudenosaunee heartlands.”

Nahar added that the celebration will include discussion of pivotal historical changes in diversity and inclusion in GSO’s history since the organization’s founding in 1968.

Wilson, who was formerly GSO president, said it’s important to find and celebrate this history because the senate puts a lot of time into large projects like the celebration. Multiple members of the senate offered to look in SU’s archives to find GSO’s history.

Published on December 4, 2019 at 10:47 pm

Contact Richard: rjchang@syr.edu | @RichardJChang1