Like all of us at Syracuse University I’ve been stunned by the ugly events that have unfolded over the past week. As a disabled faculty member, and therefore someone from a historically marginalized community, I believe the racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, misogyny and ableism in the Theta Tau videos display intersectional bigotry. While we can say the videos are not truly representative of Syracuse they are certainly a “wake up call” and this is what I want to focus on.
This morning walking my guide dog I thought “maybe a more representative motto for the university should be “Buildings Over People” as opposed to our current motto “knowledge crowns those who seek her”?” We’re great at putting up buildings that show us in the best light. We have “Ernie Davis Hall” but guess what? Ernie Davis’s developmentally disabled son was rejected from SU. We have a multi-million dollar Institute for Veterans and Military Families going up on the site of the former Disability Studies Program’s building. We dispersed the disability faculty across campus without a place to meet. Meanwhile veteran-students have related to me their disappointment at SU, remarking that the campus is an unwelcoming place. This is what I think is most central to our dilemma and which only the Board of Trustees can address: SU is not and I repeat “not” a welcoming institution for veterans, the disabled, people of color, LGBTQ students and staff, foreign students, women, it’s a long list.
Buildings over people is the proper latinate maxim for us. I believe the Trustees bear more than a little responsibility for this situation. So keen are they to cut budgets and put the university on a strict business model management system they’ve forgotten that the buildings don’t mean a thing if the people feel disparaged, maligned, under served, ignored, and of little value.
I’m a disability rights activist among other things and I’ve been asked by students and faculty to weigh in on what’s going on here and I’m trying hard to be measured. Syracuse is a good university with lots of great people. We must reaffirm what’s good here and resist what’s deleterious about our community. We need to do this with brave leadership and a true commitment to change. Buildings and heated sidewalks and underfunded resources in community services and academic programs won’t cut it, as they say in the vernacular.
ABOUT: Stephen Kuusisto is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel; Planet of the Blind (a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light and Letters to Borges. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Ohio State University. He currently teaches at Syracuse University where he holds a University Professorship in Disability Studies. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad. His website is StephenKuusisto.com.
Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey is now available for pre-order:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound.org
(Photo picturing the cover of Stephen Kuusisto’s new memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel” along with his former guide dogs Nira (top) and Corky, bottom.) Bottom photo by Marion Ettlinger
Planet of the Blind 
I could be wrong but the first video seemed to be sexually violent in ways that women can completely affirm as dangerous….
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very ugly stuff indeed. One question though: unless I missed something, I don’t understand what the mysoginist aspect is..wasn’t the person assaulted a man?
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