Lecture Hall 13 was overflowing Thursday night as students dragged in extra chairs and filled doorways to discuss the prevalence of discrimination on campus.

A group calling itself Students for Change at BU, reviewed a list of 25 reforms being submitted to provost Donald Nieman to address racial, sexual and ethnic discrimination.

Students who partook in the conversation said they felt targeted as minorities and found that staff, faculty and students are uninformed about different cultures. According to many attendees, however, the University administration had done little to address such discrimination.

Nieman was made aware of these issues at a BSU town hall meeting on Thursday, Dec. 4 that hundreds of students attended to express grievances and discontent in the community. Further discussion and organization has been handed over to Students for Change at BU, and is not affiliated with the BSU.

Students for Change at BU put forward to Nieman the list of reforms they wanted implemented. Such changes included mandatory culture competency training for all faculty, administration, student employees and resident assistants that would teach about various cultures, a cultural competency general education requirement for all students to fulfill, more diverse student and Greek organizations and a zero tolerance policy for offensive comments.

Nieman was asked to make these reforms and changes by Jan. 19, 2015, one week before spring semester begins. If no steps are taken by the administration to meet these requests by this date, several attendees suggested a demonstration on campus.

“We need to take the first step in constructing a ‘premier’ school, and have other SUNYs follow in our footsteps,” one BSU E-Board member said.

One suggested demonstration involved hundreds of students gathering around and barricading the entrances to Binghamton University to prevent anyone from entering or exiting. However, BSU president Ndeye Niang, a senior majoring in political science, assured Pipe Dream that if any protest were to be held, it would be peaceful and nondisruptive.

BU spokesperson Ryan Yarosh said that the University has had “a number of productive conversations” with the groups in recent days.

Organizers of the event said that if members of the University make offensive comments, then their case will be brought to administrative authorities or other students who can judge the extremity of the case and decide proper recourse.

“Just like there’s a zero tolerance policy for plagiarism, there should be one for discrimination,” said a junior Equality Project E-Board member who did not wish to be identified in print by name. “This doesn’t mean students will be automatically expelled, but they just need to recognize many insidious forms of discrimination that both directly and indirectly target individuals or communities.”

Other speakers said that even side comments had a real impact on the student body. According to them, even professors have to learn to be more sensitive to the wider BU community.

“Faculty sometimes make micro-comments that could potentially offend us,” said Rayan Reid, an E-Board member of BSU. “We want them to learn that they could have a negative effect on us.”

Other reforms touched on gender discrimination, asking for gender-neutral bathrooms and readily available healthcare and insurance for transgender people.

Raul Cepin, a sophomore majoring in finance, said that students and University officials need to work together in order to enact positive change.

“We need to make sure staff is taking the issue seriously,” Cepin said. “We all need a good understanding of each other and need to learn how to interact with one another.”