Triggered fears of deportation.
Via Campus Reform:
A Cornell University fraternity is being pressured into apologizing, and may even face disciplinary sanctions, after one its members was overheard chanting “build a wall.”
According to The Cornell Daily Sun, members of the school’s Zeta Psi chapter were overheard chanting phrases about “building a wall” and later about “building a wall around the Latino Living Center (LLC),” residents of which initially heard and filed complaints about the remarks.
Meanwhile, La Asociación Latina (LAL) published a statement condemning the comments, saying the LLC community was already under “a lot of duress” following the news of President Trump’s plan to cancel the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“To be met with such behavior in one of the only safe spaces on campus is infuriating, and LAL firmly denounces discriminatory speech,” the statement declares, demanding that Zeta Psi not only “issue a formal apology, with signatures from the entire executive board of the fraternity as well as the offending members,” but also meekly accept any “sanctions that may be placed against them and adhere to them strictly”
Additionally, the statement goes on to demand that all new and current members of Zeta Psi undergo mandatory diversity training, pressuring the Greek-Tri Council, Cornell President Martha Pollack, Dean Vijay Pendakur, and Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi to enforce the demands.
The Greek Tri-Council, notably, has already issued a statement on the matter, saying it is “committed to [its] principles of diversity and inclusion, and creating and fostering cultures that reject hateful actions.”
While acknowledging that “statements like these only go so far,” the Tri-Council insisted that all members are expected to “conduct themselves ‘in a manner supportive of the educational mission of the institution,'” explaining that this includes “not harassing (physical or verbal, oral or written) anything beyond the bounds of protected free speech.”