SUNY Canton Students Protest Racial Inequality
Photo via Amanda Brooks ’17
On a rainy Saturday on October 1, a peaceful protest was held outside SUNY Canton’s Richard W. Miller Campus Center to address issues of systemic racial injustice at the university. The protest was led by the Concerned Students of SUNY Canton, or CSSC, whose members wish not to be referred to by name at this time due to tension in school issues. St. Lawrence students and members of the Canton community joined CSSC in a march from the outdoor volleyball courts up to the Campus Center holding signs with phrases such as, “Freedom of expression? More like black suppression” and “No room for racism on our campus.”
The protest came about after a number of incidents occurred on SUNY Canton’s campus, including social media posts by campus police officer David Cummings that made SUNY students of color feel offended and threatened. The CSSC “found these photos, which were posted by Officer Cummings on his Facebook page, and a lot of students were talking about it and were really angry about it.” The student noted that Cumming’s Facebook page often mocks Black Lives Matter protesters and is loaded with images of the Confederate flag. Officer Cummings also accidentally discharged his gun in a campus building last year, and no apparent disciplinary actions were taken.
These concerns were met with an open forum back in September for students to voice their concerns, and for productive dialogue between students and ad-ministration to begin. The CSSC’s Facebook page recaps the forum, citing issues members felt were ad-dressed poorly or not addressed at all. President Zvi Szafran of SUNY Canton defended Officer Cummings on the grounds of freedom of speech, but many students were not satisfied with that answer, say-ing, “It’s kind of a silly comparison to make, because [students] are not expected to have the same behavior as a police officer.” Another argued that the officer’s posts on social media are “not free speech. He’s in direct violation of his employer’s conduct policies.” Before the protest began, The Hill News sat in on a short round table discussion under a gazebo in the pouring rain, as inclement weather would not stop the CSSC from getting their message across on SUNY Canton’s Family Weekend. Students gave firsthand accounts of racial discrimination experienced on the school’s campus, and voiced overall feelings of unease as a student of color on SUNY Can-ton’s campus.
One alum of color described a time he was arrested for stealing property that an RA told him was free for the taking, and how he was not allowed to explain himself. The person whose property was taken law enforcement arrested the student anyway.
At the open forum in September, the student spoke about his experience and his concerns about racially profiling. After his speech, members of the administration, all of whom did not even know the student had even been arrested, came up to him baffled and embarrassed, saying they had “no idea why [the police] handled the issue that way.” One student told us that “[Officer Cum-mings] is ignorant, and he’s been educated into that. He lives in a climate that is actually accepting to him, and he gets racist or in people’s faces. [The SUNY Canton police] are all ignorant.”
At the protest on October 1, President Szafran came out of the Campus Center to address the protestors. He listened to the students, read their signs, and respected their right to peacefully organize outside of campus buildings. After a few minutes, Jake Ruehl, a SUNY Canton student participating in the protest, addressed the president, asking, “Will you stand with us?” President Szafran responded, saying he agreed with some of the statements on the signs the protestors were holding but not all of them. Individual protestors asked him if he agreed with his or her sign. If the president did agree, the protestor crossed an invisible, but important, line in the sand for a symbolic and empowering few moments.
One sign with which President Szafran disagreed read, “SUNY Canton protects racist cops.” He encouraged the dialogue that the CSSC was starting, but reminded the protestors that “when there is dialogue, all that’s required is people who are listening with an open mind. That doesn’t mean that at the end of it we agree.”
As members of the CSSC stood outside the Campus Center in the rain discussing issues of racial in-justice with the president, other students began to join the crowd, listening in and piping up with their own concerns. A parent of a freshman student at SUNY Canton spoke up, voicing her concern that there is “no real work being done to really address the climate and the environment [of racism] that has clearly been established.”
President Szafran responded quickly, stating that SUNY Can-ton is bringing in an outside figure to work on building relationships between administration, faculty, and minority students. He was also proud to announce, “one of the things [the administration is] doing is opening a center for diversity and inclusion on our campus.”
The president also continued to push the next open forum that will be held later in the month, ask-ing students to continue the dialogue and voicing their concerns. He suggested approaching Officer Cummings or any other member of the police force or administration directly with concerns. He also left the discussion by saying “Our students can contact me at any time. If they’ve got an issue, they know that they have my phone number,” and wasn’t opposed to students calling at any hour of the day.
The president left the protest with some positive feedback; how-ever, students were still concerned that the administration is still all talk and is taking no direct action towards solving the issues at hand, such as disciplining or firing Officer Cummings for his racist Facebook posts or accidentally discharging his weapon on school grounds. In the words of one student, “The campus body and the campus administration are on completely different wavelengths.”
Find the CSSC on Facebook to get updates on when the next open forum is, and consider standing with your fellow Canton students in solidarity against racial injustice on their campus.