The student body at Syracuse University is made up of over 1,000 student veterans and military connected students. The university greatly benefits and profits from the attendance of veterans, yet the administration doesn’t do enough to make sure veterans are accepted by the SU community. Chancellor Kent Syverud needs to step up and protect the people who have protected this country. 

Less than fifty years after opening its doors, SU quickly became a place for educating military members. The relationship between SU and veterans dates back to 1918, when SU established a Students Army Training Corps. Due to the armistice, this program was shut down after less than a year in existence, but SU created the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1919.

By attending SU, student veterans bring leadership within the student body, life experiences, peer mentorship and money to the university. The student veteran community needs Syverud to address the university community today just as he did in his famous inauguration address in 2014, when he said SU “must once again become the best place for veterans.” 

Although it is true that Syverud has led the way in the establishment and expansion of many programs, he has failed on one of the biggest fronts: inclusion.

Diversity and inclusion are essential to college campuses around the country. SU has FYS 101, a course for incoming and transfer students which focuses on discussions about discrimination and bias as well as diversity and inclusion. But this course’s syllabus omits student veterans despite the value most veterans place on diversity and inclusion. 

Because of the lack of needed support from SU, being a veteran at SU can be challenging.

Liam Hines, a student at SU, wrote an article where he says, “Any such rhetoric which defends or celebrates the U.S. military is consequently a voicing of support for U.S. imperialism, neocolonialism and mass murder. Rather than participating in the recreation of U.S. ideological hegemony, SU students must condemn this rhetoric wherever it appears.”

While Hines’ speech may be protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution, it can be deeply offensive to veterans and to the members of the military — some of whom share the SU campus with Hines — who paid the ultimate price for freedom. 

On Sept. 11, 2021, an SU professor tweeted, “We have to be more honest about what 9/11 was and what it wasn’t. It was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic system that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity … It was an attack on the system many white Americans fight to protect.”

While this professor has the right to their own beliefs and their First Amendment right of freedom of speech, the university should have shown its support for its veterans by condemning their speech. 

Since the university failed to address the professor’s comments properly, I’ll take the time to address what the leadership on campus failed to correct. 

Veterans of the U.S. military come from around the world, and veterans represent a range of ethnicities. While veterans respect your freedom to express protected speech, the SU community must be more sensitive to veterans. Everyone serves for different reasons, and for the professor to classify us as only “white Americans” is deeply offensive. 

It seems that all individuals are protected at SU except student veterans. I am calling on the chancellor to make an instant change and commit to making SU a more inclusive place for veterans. It is imperative that SU develops trainings and seminars to explain the value that student veterans bring to campus. This unwelcoming environment towards veterans needs to stop, and SU must stop calling itself “the best place for veterans” until then.

 Matt Winchell ‘19

Published on October 10, 2021 at 8:29 pm