A fourth bias-related incident at Day Hall was reported to the Department of Public Safety. 

A racial slur was yelled twice at freshman Minghao Ai, who is Chinese, as he left Day Hall around 11:50 p.m. on Friday, he said in an interview. The slur was yelled from a window above. No other students were outside at the time of the incident, he said. 

Ai went back to Lawrinson Hall and filed a bias report before calling DPS at 12:15 a.m. on Saturday. Officers came to Lawrinson and took a statement from him. He also shared the incident in a group chat for first-year Chinese students on the social media platform WeChat.

“God, I can’t understand what’s going on in this campus,” he said in a text message. “Before I came to SU, I did a lot of research which shows me that SU is a super friendly university.”

Day Hall has been the site of several racist and bias-related incidents that have ignited campus protests and spurred calls for university-wide change. Slurs against black and Asian people were found on the fourth and sixth floor of Day Hall last week. DPS announced on Thursday night a bias-related incident directed toward Asian people on the third floor of Day Hall.

A campus-wide DPS email sent Saturday afternoon stated that they currently do not have enough evidence to verify that the incident was motivated by bias.

After the DPS update, Ai told The Daily Orange that he stands by his original account, including that a slur was yelled.

This post has been updated with additional reporting. 

Published on November 16, 2019 at 3:48 am

Contact Ghael at jgfobesm@syr.edu