Chancellor did not mention death threats against a faculty member

Dear Editor,

On the morning of Nov. 19, a member of the SU faculty, Genevieve García de Müeller received an anti-Semitic message on her university email address that called her “a monstrous looking” “k” word and saying “get into the oven,” a reference to the ovens at Nazi concentration camps where millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

Genevieve García de Müeller reported this anti-Semitic death threat to the Department of Public Safety and spoke with the Syracuse City Police Department, who were called because the email was received at her home on her syr.edu address. She also notified her colleagues in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition, who issued a statement of support for her.

Syracuse University took over 24 hours to post a Public Safety Information notice at 3:05 p.m. on Nov. 20. In the meantime, the university sent out emails reassuring the SU community that there “has been no physical violence or a physical threat to personal safety” on campus. This statement is striking given the death threat and hate speech Garcia de Müeller received.

In the chancellor’s remarks at the University Senate today, he did not mention the anti-Semitic hate speech targeted at García de Müeller in his list of known threats and incidents on campus. A colleague had to bring up this situation from the Senate floor. My question is, why was this not mentioned by Chancellor Syverud? Faculty and students on campus were able to read about Genevieve García de Müeller’s situation in the New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education and on Twitter before reading a university communication about this situation.

In addition to many students of color and Jewish students not feeling safe on campus, many faculty of color and Jewish faculty do not feel safe at their workplace. Thanks to #NotAgainSU, a black student led movement occupying the Barnes Center, we have students pushing back against racism and anti-Semitism on campus and calling for more transparency and swift responses and justice in response to such attacks. We should do everything in our power to support García de Müeller and support #NotAgainSU and stand in solidarity against acts of hate speech and hate crimes.

Sincerely,

Eileen E. Schell

Professor of Writing and Rhetoric