My student is a freshman at Syracuse and the protests are blown way out of proportion. First off, the group protesting is leveraging social media to make it look bigger off campus with national media. The demands were way beyond acceptable. In fact, the administration agreed to most of them but those protesting have pushed back because three demands were tweaked to comply with law. Now the protesters want the Chancellor to resign. Give me a break.
Interesting. I guess it depends on which SU students you know. My colleague’s DD (a junior there) had quite the opposite reaction. She doesn’t feel the protests “are blown way out of proportion” at all. She said (as several national sources like NYT and Washington Post have confirmed), there is a history of the administration sweeping racial and ethnic incidents under the rug. Perhaps your DD’s perspective will change after a few years? Who knows? It doesn’t surprise me that different students can have different experiences at the same college. Especially where this is concerned. But, I think you need to acknowledge that that is her opinion, and it is not a fact that “the group protesting is leveraging social media.”
A junior would have been there when the Theta Tau incident happened in spring 2018, but a frosh would not have been there. I.e. the junior has seen similar problems in recent history that the frosh did not, so it would not be surprising that a junior would think that racial problems are more ongoing and serious than a frosh would.
http://dailyorange.com/2018/08/4-months-since-theta-tau-video-controversy-heres-whats-happened-since-april/
https://www.syracuse.com/su-news/2018/11/theta_tau_syracuse_university_students_interviews_dps.html