ITHACA — One month into the academic year, issues of race had consumed the Cornell University campus. The student government meeting in Bache Auditorium, on a Thursday evening in September, was no exception.

About 30 undergraduate students, including several from the umbrella organization Black Students United, crowded the floor of the auditorium to support the passage of a bill condemning hate speech and hate crimes.

The resolution was brought in response to two racially charged incidents that occurred near the campus. Six days before the meeting, a black Cornell student was called the N-word multiple times and punched in the face repeatedly by a group of white students, he told The Cornell Daily Sun. Earlier that month, another Cornell student chanted “build a wall” in front of the Latino Living Center.

The incidents sparked campus protests and demonstrations organized by Black Students United. The group’s leaders presented Cornell President Martha Pollack with a list of demands meant to curtail racism on campus. Pollack responded by, among other things, promising to launch a task force to address “persistent problems of bigotry and intolerance” at Cornell.

But BSU members made clear they wanted more from the university — including an addition to the Campus Code of Conduct with language banning hate speech.

“We are not complacent, and we will keep fighting for our demands,” said Imani Luckey, BSU’s political action chair, at the assembly meeting.

Two weeks later, the push for racial equality hasn’t subsided. The Sun reported Tuesday that a coalition of graduate students delivered its own list of demands to the university calling for improved social justice on campus.

The circumstances at Cornell, a Syracuse University peer institution, aren’t uncommon on campuses of historically white institutions, which scholars say have racism entrenched in their cultures. Just last week, Confederate flag posters with cotton attached were found on the campus of American University, another SU peer institution.

Also last week, students at the University of Michigan marched in protest of on-campus racial injustice, The Michigan Daily reported. Similar protests have become common on campuses in recent years. That includes SU, where in 2014 THE General Body — a coalition of students, faculty and staff — held an 18-day sit-in at Crouse-Hinds Hall to protest, among other issues, the university’s treatment of marginalized groups.

Such protests are likely to continue this academic year and in coming years, particularly given the country’s tense racial climate under President Donald Trump, scholars said.

Whether or not activism like that at Cornell will change those institutions is unclear. Even when mobilization is strong, other obstacles exist. Universities tend to have priorities that don’t align with protesters’ demands, and public dialogue surrounding student activism often strays from the topic of race, experts say. 

But some scholars said they believe the combination of a Trump presidency and coordinated activism could turn college campuses into places that spark reform.

Emma Comtois | Digital Editor

Mobilization challenges

Whatever lasting impact THE General Body had on SU may be attributed, at least in part, to two factors: the group’s organization and proactiveness. Experts say these factors are necessary for student activists to succeed.

The group began planning its sit-in about a month prior to entering Crouse-Hinds Hall, said Danielle Reed, an active member of THE General Body during the sit-in who graduated in 2016. Events like the closing of the Advocacy Center and cuts to Posse scholarships, which increased campus diversity, set those plans in motion.

Students occupied Crouse-Hinds Hall for 18 days and frequently issued their own press releases, allowing them some control over the public conversation surrounding the sit-in.

“I think we were successful in getting our voices heard and getting our faces out there,” Reed said.

THE General Body sparked some tangible change. SU has since launched the Chancellor’s Workgroup on Diversity and Inclusion, which produced a list of 33 recommendations for the university. Seventeen of those recommendations have been achieved.

Ronald Hall, a professor at Michigan State University who studies race relations, said being able to organize and raise awareness about protests is often the biggest hurdle for activists.

“If they are motivated, if they are organized, they can dictate the direction of any university,” Hall said.

But even when a group’s mobilization is substantial, there are inherent risks that come with participating in demonstrations, activists say.

Some members of THE General Body stopped participating because they felt their scholarships could be threatened, Reed said.

At the University of Missouri, where a series of protests over racism occurred during the 2015-16 year, some activists — including Reuben Faloughi, a graduate student — lost their jobs. Some undergraduates couldn’t get into graduate school after the protests, he said.

“It’s a heavy price to pay,” he said. “There’s backlash. There’s consequences to all those actions.”

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‘It’s hard to get our message across’

For student activists on the University of California, Berkeley campus — such as undergraduate Juniperangelica Cordova — the issue at hand was simple.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a conservative commentator, was scheduled to speak at the campus in February, and it was believed he intended to publicize the names of undocumented students at the school. Activists felt those students needed protection, so they protested the event, which was ultimately canceled.

In the coming months, more protests ensued. In March, activists protested a pro-Trump rally on the campus. In April, there were protests after the university planned to host Ann Coulter, who has advocated against a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

But as activists continued to demonstrate against speakers such as Yiannopoulos and Coulter, the conversation surrounding Berkeley shifted to free speech.

Berkeley has since become the center of the debate over free speech on college campuses. Most media coverage of the protests focuses on the free speech issue, Cordova said. Trump in February threatened to cut federal funding for Berkeley because “it does not allow free speech.”

To activists at Berkeley like Cordova, who is now a university senator, the debate over free speech misses the original point of the protests, which was to protect undocumented students.

“We’ve watched this evolve into a debate that’s no longer about community safety, but about free speech,” Cordova said. “Essentially, it’s about who’s pro-free speech and who’s anti-free speech, when this all really started with who’s willing to protect students and who’s not willing to protect students. So it’s hard to get our message across.”

Cheryl Greenberg, a professor of history at Trinity College who teaches courses on race, said shifts like these are attempts to avoid conversations about race.

“It’s a way to shift the blame to people of color,” Greenberg said. “If you don’t want to talk about racism on campus, you talk about free speech. How do you claim it’s black people’s fault? You don’t say it’s their fault, you say free speech needs to be protected and shift the conversation there.”

Follow the money

Of the notable campus protests in recent years, only one ended in immediate fundamental change. University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe and University of Missouri-Columbia Chancellor Richard Bowen Loftin each resigned following protests at the university.

Some believe those resignations can be attributed to the activism of one particular group of students: the school’s football team. On Nov. 7, 2015, a group of players announced they would not practice or play until Wolfe resigned. He resigned two days later.

If the team’s boycott hadn’t ended in time for its game that week against Brigham Young University, the school would’ve forfeited $1 million for breaking a contract between the two schools.

But when a group of protesters doesn’t have that type of financial influence over a university, administrators have less incentive to accommodate them, experts said. Administrators may be inclined to downplay protesters’ grievances to protect the university’s image.

At SU, some within the campus community believe administrators were dismissive of THE General Body’s concerns and interfered with their ability to peacefully protest.

Daily Orange File Photo

In February 2015, a Graduate Student Organization resolution called for an investigation of the administration’s actions toward THE General Body. The resolution alleged SU officials did not show “proper respect” to protesters and that administrators created a “hostile environment” by prohibiting the entry of a faculty member into Crouse-Hinds, among other concerns.

In response to that resolution, Syverud said he “found no instances of disrespectful behavior by my administrative team.”

But Reed said she and other THE General Body participants felt SU leadership tried to turn the larger campus community against the activists.

“The politics got ugly,” she said. “The tactic was to make us seem crazy. People don’t understand how much the university — they didn’t officially threaten us, but they definitely swung their power around to scare us.”

‘We can’t ignore it’

When Faloughi reflects on the protests of the 2015-16 year at Missouri, he considers at least one aspect of it a success: It generated a conversation about race at the university that was not previously happening.

Reed assesses the outcome of THE General Body sit-in similarly. She said the protests “woke a lot of people up” to realities on SU’s campus.

“The fact that it’s lasted, the fact that it made an impact, to me makes it successful,” she said.

In a Trump presidency, some scholars said they believe student activists can continue to generate those conversations, and do so on a larger scale. Greenberg, the Trinity College professor, said she expects the public discourse surrounding Trump will “accelerate this into being something transformative.”

Hall, the Michigan State professor, said he thinks racial issues have become a critical political issue, “unlike in years past.” He said students can play a critical role in helping to inform the public on race.

“(Students) don’t have the grind of family life every day, so they’re in a position where they can afford to do more exploration,” he said. “And I think we are going to be in a position now where finally we’re going to have to confront race because we can’t ignore it.”

Published on October 5, 2017 at 12:28 am

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu