One year ago, at the start of THE General Body’s sit-in, The Daily Orange Editorial Board wrote a statement titled “Unruly Behavior at DAT Rally Will Not Spur Change.” Last week, The Daily Orange Editorial Board asked THE General Body to thank the Syracuse University administration for all the change spurred by DAT rally and the sit-in.

While deeply ironic, I am not surprised.

Both editorials illustrate the inability to dig beneath the administration’s inclusion delusions and to understand the necessity of substantive action. We learned with the Advocacy Center that while we listen and dialogue, they just cut.

I will detail the three major examples of change described by The DO:

1.    In response to a major TGB demand, the university has hired an Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator. This is great news for the university, but the question should be why it took an 18-day sit-in to speed up an ADA search many years too late.

2.     Divest SU wrote a letter to the editor titled “Divest SU Responds to University Limiting Fossil Fuels.” In it, we described how SU only made a formal policy out of their existing investments. SU did not actually move any money out of fossil fuels.

3.     The editorial board mentions the Fast Forward Syracuse and the Academic Strategic Plan as “new lines of communication” opened since the sit-in. The editorial board has the timeline reversed on this point. Fast Forward was in process before the sit-in. The sit-in was a rejection of it.

The original Fast Forward working groups contained only six undergraduates out of 93 seats. The protest pushed and achieved the addition of more students. I was one of the graduate students added, but by the time I joined, plans were already set and my minor recommendations were dismissed. I talked to other students and found that my experience was common. This is the official channel that “allows expression” (but not action) promoted by The DO Editorial Board.

While details of these issues are important, the major point the editorial board misses is that power doesn’t work out of good will. Frederick Douglass wrote that “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

And while the power at SU continues its path of slashing jobs and programs, and militarizing and corporatizing the university, power doesn’t deserve a thank you.

Ben Kuebrich, Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Alumnus

Published on November 10, 2015 at 12:47 am