While Parents Weekend found many students stashing their contraband, one group of students disrupted the weekend’s festivities in an effort to ensure that Halloween’s bias-related incident wasn’t swept under the rug.

About 40 people rallied at the Schine Student Center late Friday afternoon to protest the university’s response to an incident involving a State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry student who dressed in blackface on Halloween, said SU spokesman Kevin Morrow. The protesters were calling upon the university to institute a zero-tolerance policy with regards to bias-related incidents.

The rally began in the Schine atrium and moved to the Panasci Lounge, where Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw and his wife, Mary Ann Shaw, were greeting students and their parents, Morrow said. University officials were informed of the demonstration ahead of time and Department of Public Safety officers were on hand during the rally. Although university staff had to ask the demonstrators not to stand on the furniture in Panasci while making speeches to the crowd, the protest remained peaceful, and Public Safety officers did not have to intervene, Morrow said.

The rally was organized by the Student African-American Society, said Jamar Hooks, a junior political science, sociology and policy studies major who attended the demonstration. Hooks, who was one of several students to address the crowd from atop Panasci’s furniture, said in addition to demanding that the university address the blackface incident, he and other speakers were sending a message to parents that bias-related incidents were not just a ‘black issue.’

Hooks said the crowd was largely receptive to the demonstrators’ message, which included demands for diversity education. One person in the crowd suggested that minority students should be responsible for educating their peers about the need for cultural sensitivity, Hooks said.

‘It was made clear that it’s not our job to educate anybody,’ Hooks said. ‘We don’t wear a double hat. I pay $36,000 to go to SU, and I refuse to teach someone something when I’m not being paid for it.’

For some parents, however, the protesters’ message was not so clear. Anthony Grzymkowski of Fairlawn, N.J., father of Daily Orange Asst. Feature Editor Eric Grzymkowski, said the demonstrators’ signs contained only general slogans about hate and race. Anthony Grzymkowski said he encountered the demonstrators as he was entering the Schine Bookstore and considered asking them to explain the reasons behind their demonstration.

‘Obviously, they had something to present,’ Grzymkowski said. ‘You really didn’t understand what the specifics of their problem was.’

Hooks said Shaw didn’t even attempt to understand the protesters, but instead walked away while they demonstrated in Panasci. Morrow said Shaw was listening to the demonstrators’ presentations while continuing with the scheduled event.

Morrow did not know whether Shaw will issue an official response to the protest. SU cannot meet protesters’ demands for the expulsion of the student since SUNY-ESF administrators are handling the case.

Morrow added that measures like expulsion are not likely to become part of the university’s protocol for dealing with bias-related incidents because the university’s judicial system is based on education, not punitive action.

‘As an institution, you can’t regulate thinking, but we can educate,’ he said.

Published on November 9, 2003 at 12:00 pm