UPDATED: April 3, 2018 at 6:10 p.m.

Following threats circulating on social media declaring April 3 “Punish a Muslim Day,” it’s essential for Syracuse University to remind its student body that violent threats made against its Muslim community are taken seriously.

When it comes to hate speech on college campuses, university administrators must take immediate action to alleviate these threats and protect the rights and security of religious minorities. In an email to Muslim students, Hendricks Chapel Dean Brian Konkol condemned the threats, arguing it’s SU’s responsibility to ensure its students live in a safe environment. 

“Syracuse University’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is rooted in the belief that an education informed by multiple points of view, life experiences, ethnicities, cultures and belief systems is essential to academic excellence,” Konkol said. “As a witness to these shared values, we must continue to promote respect, dignity, inclusion and equity in all our words and actions.”

Konkol followed up his initial statement with an additional email to the entire campus community on Tuesday afternoon, calling on both the university and Hendricks Chapel to “stand in solidarity” with Muslim students, faculty, staff and community members.

Konkol should be applauded for his email, and I join him in calling for the promotion of these values. While the threats originated from the U.K. and spread to the United States, when the safety of SU’s Muslim community is threatened, action should be taken.

SU celebrated Diversity Week at the end of March, and it featured events that didn’t just tolerate our differences, but showcased them. This university thrives on the fact that people from different backgrounds can come together and have an experience like no other, and our unity as members of the SU community makes for a stronger campus and student body.

As a gay man coming from the South, I knew there was hatred, but I came here because I thought there was a chance those experiences wouldn’t happen on campus. Just as members of the LGBTQ community deserve the utmost respect and acceptance, I’m asking for you to extend that same respect to our Muslim community.

Hatred on the basis of someone’s religious, racial or ethnic background isn’t a political statement. On a campus that touts the best and the brightest, we’re better than that. If you choose to inflict your vitriol on unsuspecting and undeserving classmates who only ask to go to class in peace, you’re exhibiting the worst of this country and this campus.

The only way to eliminate ignorance is to encourage acceptance. It’s our job to fight back against people whose only hope to feel big in this world is to make others feel small. I want to remind Muslim students that those who wish to terrorize them are a minority, and there is so much more love at SU than there is hate.

In this ordeal, we should remember this is our world and everyone else’s at the same time. We get to write a story that will be told for years to come, but we should remember that everyone else has that same right. The question we have to face as a campus now is how we write that story in a way that includes everyone’s dreams and realities, not just our own individual ones.

Take the time to be a friend to someone who has seen — or needs to see — better days. After a long day of wondering if some stranger is going to attack you for being you, being a calming voice is a simple but powerful reminder that good deeds are present on campus.

Take time to write the next chapter of SU’s story, and include our Muslim classmates who deserve to be heard and respected.

Ryan Golden is a freshman policy studies and religion dual major. His column appears biweekly. He can be reached at rjgolden@syr.edu.

Published on April 2, 2018 at 10:31 pm