To the Syracuse University Community:

We, the faculty members of the Philosophy Department, want to express our sadness and outrage at the series of recent hate crimes that have swept through the campus community, and our solidarity with everyone who has been affected. Acts of this sort have no place anywhere, especially not in a university environment dedicated to knowledge, openness, mutual understanding, and respect.

We also want to register our support for the students currently protesting in the Barnes Center, who are helping to highlight the ways these recent hate crimes occur in the context of a larger pattern of exclusion faced by students from marginalized communities on this campus. We will accommodate the students participating in the campus protests, as well as students who wish to remain away from campus out of safety concerns, and will make sure that you are not academically penalized for this. If you expect to miss a class, or require an extension on an assignment, please contact your instructor or the Philosophy Department's Undergraduate Director, Kara Richardson.

We would also like to hear from you. If you want to speak with any of us about these recent events, we invite you to our office hours to do so. We also believe that philosophical understanding and reflection should continue to play a central role in discussions of racism, xenophobia, exclusion, and injustice. We will offer several courses next semester that address issues of social justice, including:

• PHI 175 - Social & Political Philosophy
• PHI 192 - Intro to Moral Theory
• PHI 317 - Social Contract Tradition

Please consider joining us in continuing this conversation in any of these classes in the spring.

Best wishes,
The Faculty Members of the Philosophy Department, Syracuse University