On Wednesday, Sept. 17, Syracuse University students, faculty and staff will gather at noon on the steps of Hendricks Chapel to protest the SU administration’s undemocratic closure of the Advocacy Center in June.

The closure happened with little comprehensive planning in place and without student or faculty input at a time when most students were away. The administration gave only five days notice to the AC and the campus community, interrupting crucial services for victims of sexual assault and relationship violence over the summer.

Responding to community outcry, the administration later held two listening meetings. During this time, students formed the Campaign for an Advocacy Center, working with administration to identify gaps left by the AC’s closing. We are happy for this collaboration, which helped to ensure that students were educated about services, and that victims of sexual assault have helpful places to go this fall.

But the Advocacy Center was more than just a service for victims. It was a center for turning victims into survivors and advocates, a place that actively challenged rape culture on campus. It provided a central location where all resources were devoted to sexual assault prevention education and survivor support. The Advocacy Center provided comprehensive advocacy services, services not fully available in the same way in the new system.Our aims with the rally are to create a new center for advocacy on campus, to ensure the university fully devotes its energy to creating a campus-wide culture of consent practices and sexual assault prevention and to ensure that no more decisions are made about us without us.
We hope that the university will not, on a whim, close another vital center or service without first consulting students.

Rape culture, sexual assault and relationship violence affect everyone, and it is our collective responsibility to support victims and end the cultures that create this violence.
Furthermore, it is our right to have a democratic university, where decisions about our education and campus environment are made with the consent of students.

Wednesday from 12–12:45 is a time to voice your support for consent in both forms. The rally is organized by the Campaign for an Advocacy Center at SU, and sponsored by A Men’s Issue, ANSWER Coalition, CCR Graduate Circle, Divest SU, Graduate Student Organization, Student Association, SASSE, Students of Sustainability, Labor Studies Working Group and the University Senate Committee on Women’s Concerns.
Please join us!

On behalf of the Campaign for an Advocacy Center at SU, Rebecca Glaser
MFA Creative Writing ‘15, Ben Kuebrich,Doctoral Candidate in Composition and Cultural Rhetoric, bdkuebri@syr.edu, Farrell Greenwald Brenner, Syracuse University ‘17, Coronat Scholar, Citizenship & Civic Engagement and Women’s & Gender Studies Majors, Derek Ford, Graduate student, Cultural Foundations of Education, drford@syr.edu