SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University students carried signs and chanted Wednesday for the university to release a controversial video of Syracuse University fraternity members.

The students chanted in front of the chancellor's house. They marched down Walnut Avenue. They held signs that read "Where's the video? Release it." They moved on to Hendricks Chapel where they continued the protests.

The college suspended the fraternity Wednesday morning. The videos of members of the SU chapter of Theta Tau showed offensive behavior which the university described as racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist and "hostile to people with disabilities."

"I am appalled by this and deeply concerned for all members of our community," Chancellor Kent Syverud wrote in an email.

Syverud helped facilitate a 2:30 p.m. campus meeting and a University Senate meeting. Unsatisfied with those meetings, students held the protests and led a discussion at Hendricks Chapel on Syracuse's campus at 7 p.m.

About 100 people gathered for the march from the chanellor's home to Hendricks Chapel. About 400 students gathered inside the chapel, filling most of the bottom floor and parts of the balconies.

At 6 p.m., students gathered in front of Syverud's house on Comstock Avenue. They marched down Harrison Street, then down Walnut Avenue, past Bird Library and through the campus to Hendricks Chapel.

For more than three hours, students unloaded years' worth of frustration about what they see as systemic racism and sexism at Syracuse University.

There, they invoked feelings from a 2014 video that showed an SU women's soccer player directing racial and homophobic slurs at another person.

They invoked feelings from when The General Body occupied the office of admissions in 2014.

They talked of when the university cut POSSE scholarships for minority students.

Some students shared personal experiences, including a black member of the Alpha Chi Rho fraternity at Syracuse. When he joined the fraternity, he didn't realize he was choosing between the "white campus" and "black campus." After joining, he felt like a sellout. He implored members of Theta Tau in attendance to stand up and apologize.

Some targeted the lack of resources given to students of color, others mentioned that the Office of Multicultural Affairs is located in the basement of Schine Student Center. Another asked for the Department of Public Safety to treat students of color as human beings.



Other students lamented that the chancellor failed to attend the forum.

Another student, who said he passed on going to the University of Pennsylvania or the University of Texas for a scholarship at Syracuse, said he planned on transferring.

"I don't want to call out the chancellor," the student said, "but (not showing up) is a cowardly thing to do."

After more than an hour of students sharing personal experiences on campus, the leaders of the forum started a call-to-action session. Students recommended ideas that spanned from leading by example to making certain African American Studies courses mandatory to finding a better way to organize.

But finally, at about 9:40 p.m., when a vote was about to be held on whether to watch the video, one of the student speakers at the forum balked.

Janet Flores, an SU senior and one of the discussion's facilitators, listed the types of trigger warnings she'd have to issue -- warnings for relationship violence, racism and sexism, among others.

"You know what," Flores said. "I'm not even going to go through with this."

The video was not shown at the meeting.

The meeting lasted until after 11 p.m. As it closed, SU junior Saumya Melwani approached a podium at the front of Hendricks Chapel with fewer than a quarter of the original attendees still there.

"These are your stories," Melwani said. "This is your time."

"This gives me a reason to stay here until they fix things," she added.