Editor’s note: This article contains details about the usage of racial slurs.

The third floor of Day Hall was the site of more bias-related graffiti, the Department of Public Safety said in a campus-wide email. Several students who live on the floor confirmed late Thursday night what it entailed. 

This was the third bias-related incident in Day Hall, and the fifth around SU’s campus since Wednesday of last week.

The third floor of Day Hall is an international learning community that primarily houses Asian students. The phrase was written on the side of an elevator. 

A group of students on the third floor were sitting in a lounge by the elevators when the Department of Public Safety arrived to erase the message from the elevator, two students, who declined to be named, said on Thursday night. The students said DPS arrived between 9 and 10 p.m.

“We were just hanging out there and then some DPS (officers) came and they erased that,” a resident on the third floor told The Daily Orange. 

DPS covered the message up Thursday night, several students said. Gabe Stern | Asst. News Editor

The graffiti was also briefly referenced at a public forum on Tuesday.

“(International students) didn’t even know the situation was occuring because nobody translated it to them,” one student said at the Residence Hall Association forum. “Most of us told us ‘I don’t know what’s going on. Tell me what’s going on.’”

On Wednesday, ceiling lights in bathrooms on the sixth floor were pulled out and put in a toilet. The N-word was written on part of the light, at least one mirror on the floor and garbage cans. A slur against Asian people was also written on a bulletin board on the fourth floor.

Starting at 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday students began at sit-in at the Barnes Center at The Arch, protesting the graffiti and the university’s response to it. The protest is ongoing.

Graffiti using racist language against Asian people was reported in the Physics Building Thursday morning. DPS is currently investigating the graffiti as a bias-related incident. 

On Thursday evening, a swastika was found etched into snow on a property on Comstock Avenue next to the luxury apartment 505 on Walnut, a luxury student apartment. Mayor Ben Walsh announced that SPD is investigating that incident, the mayor’s office announced Thursday night.

The DPS statement from Thursday night reads, in full:

“A short time ago, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) responded to a report of a potential bias incident. Graffiti that maligns the Asian community was discovered on the third floor of Day Hall. DPS is currently canvassing the floor and speaking with residents. No other details are available at this time.” 

Published on November 15, 2019 at 1:23 am

Contact KJ: kjedelma@syr.edu | @KJEdelman