A broad coalition of students at Syracuse University has been occupying the university’s administration building since Monday. The occupation began after 250 students, faculty, staff, and community members held an impassioned rally on the main quad. That rally was the fourth of the semester. Students are protesting against several policies, including the university’s undemocratic closing of the sexual assault center, their refusal to divest from fossil fuels, and their cuts to scholarships for working-class and oppressed students.
After the first three rallies, students formed a group called THE General Body. Over 100 students showed up for the group’s first organizing meeting. In a short amount of time, students constructed a list of grievances and demands around a multitude of issues.
When students marched from the quad to the administration building, they were greeted by two administrators and a representative of SU’s Department of Public Safety (DPS). They refused to let students into the building which, although it houses the administration and admissions offices, also holds common spaces and classrooms.
After the confrontation, a few students stealthily moved to a side door. That door was also locked, but a student inside was able to open it, and between 80-100 students entered the building that way. Once inside, they set up in the common area on the first floor. After a struggle with DPS, the students won the right to stay inside overnight, provided that no more than 40-50 students remained while the building was closed.
During the days of the occupation, hundreds of students gather in the common area to talk, strategize, and study. Professors have even been holding classes in the occupied space. Donations of food and other supplies have been pouring in.
On Nov. 5, the third day of the occupation, the students held a press conference to announce that they will not be backing down until the administration commits–in a spoken and written public statement–to addressing the group’s demands and agree to address them with a reasonable time-frame worked out by the group.
In addition to the militancy and determination of the student protesters, two other notable aspects of the occupation and movement have been the multiplicity of groups that have been working together and the organic nature of that cooperation. The students are uniting around demands for advancing and defending the rights of students with disabilities, students of color, graduate and adjunct labor, working-class students, students with mental health needs, survivors of sexual assault and relationship violence and more. All of these struggles are being linked in practice, in an inspiring display of unity and solidarity.
