In the first incident, following a meeting of Judicial Board and Financial Council, wherein several student groups had brought in grievances against Alice Liou, alleging that she had neglected her duties as Vice President for Finance, Liou happened upon two members of the Student Assembly sitting in an office. The two were Elahd Bar-Shai, Student Assembly speaker-elect, and another member of the SA eboard. When Liou spoke with the two, she was verbally harassed by Bar-Shai, and when she retaliated with a quip on Bar-Shai's thinning hair, he told her that he was surprised she could see it, particularly with her "small, squinty eyes." Alice left the room rather than continuing the argument.Here's what transpired in the second incident, this time apparently involving a physical altercation with members of a conservative student paper, as described a post over at the APAs for Progress website:
On the night of Monday, April 27, 2009, following a dispute at a Student Assembly meeting, Alice Liou, the Vice President of Finance, attempted to break up an altercation. This near-brawl occurred when a few SA representatives, who are also members of the conservative publication "Binghamton Review", attempted to leave the meeting early. They reasoned that, since they had elected of their own as chair of the assembly for 2009-10, they could then depart, though their absence would leave the Assembly under the minimum number of people required to conduct business, thus crippling the Assembly. As she attempted to separate those involved in the incident, Liou, (who is of Asian-American descent) was told by one of those members to "shut up and go eat a fucking dog" and took a swing at her. At this point, the police were called, and Pipe Dream, our school newspaper, took testimony from Alice--which they choose not to print; instead the editor of Pipe Dream moved to clear the Binghamton Review of all involvement, choosing to take a statement from the editor-in-chief of Binghamton Review over any statement from Liou. Further, this occurred in spite of the fact that all the antagonists have written for and have been involved in the Binghamton Review. Still, we realize that these individuals were not speaking on behalf of the Review but as individuals and should be punished as such.In terms of student government politics, I don't really understand what's happening here, or what kind of obvious bad blood exists between the parties involved. What I do know is, no one should be attacked in this manner, and nobody should have to deal with this kind of racial hate at their own school.
The Binghamton University administration, as well as the student assembly, needs to respond with appropriate action, or else this will just become yet another instance of campus racism directed towards Asians that simply fades away and is forgotten... until the next one inevitably happens.
Students from Asian Outlook Magazine at Binghamton are organizing a protest during Spring Fling this Saturday at 2:00pm in front of the Cooper Administrative Building, to speak out and call on the student assembly and the administration to action. For more information, see the Facebook event page here: Rally Against Racism and Intolerance.