I remain disgusted by what I saw take place at Crouse-Hinds Hall last week.

Students, many of whom had been blocked all day from delivering food and necessities to the students of the #NotAgainSU sit-in, threw that food over the heads of the officers as DPS entered the building. What else should the officers and administrators expect? Campus, coming from the Latin for “field,” connotes a place of free movement in a very literal sense (and supposedly freedom of thought and expression.) Blockade tactics are for military action; they have no place being implemented against students, let alone peaceful students voicing their earnest concerns.

“Will you please take these in?” begs a student as I stepped outside of Crouse-Hinds. “My friend needs them.” Access had been cut off.

She covertly extends a hand towards me: it is essential that DPS not see the “contraband.”

A handful of tampons.

There is something superiorly sick about a university that denies its students access — under any circumstances — to such intimate, bodily essentials.

“Hey, stop!” I shout, as DPS Associate Chief John Sardino shoves a student towards a brick wall to close a door. As he uses his body, his hand briefly touches his concealed sidearm. How provocative, dangerous, and reckless that DPS officers would conduct themselves in this way. The purpose was not to protect students, it was to intimidate them out of voicing their concerns, both through the excessive use of force and frightening displays of it. If this is “community policing” and “public safety,” who needs it? An investigation of Sardino’s behavior is urgently necessary.
Keeping students out of that basement space in Crouse-Hinds — a space they pay to be in and should be allowed in, if we take seriously what a university campus is — should seem very unimportant in the face of this appalling behavior. What was Chancellor Syverud’s true concern when he complained against ‘ideological uniformity’ in a fall 2019 University Senate meeting? Is it the desire to discourage faculty who might stand with students expressing anti-oppressive, leftist, and progressive opinions? The business of the university is that of liberty, even when it comes at the expense of business as usual.

 

Nicholas Croce

Social Science Ph. D Student

Syracuse University

Published on February 24, 2020 at 11:13 pm