New York, September 23 (RHC)-- In Ithaca, New York, hundreds of Black students marched into Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall and occupied the building for several hours after delivering a list of demands to the university’s president in a protest reminiscent of the 1969 takeover of the same building.

More than 300 marchers, led by Black Students United, silently climbed three flights of stairs in Day Hall and handed a list of demands to President Martha Pollack, who had met with BSU earlier in the day. The protesters, the majority of whom were Black and most of whom were people of color, were responding in part to the assault last week of a Black Cornell student who said a group of white men called him the N-word and bloodied him by repeatedly punching him in the face in Collegetown.

Two weeks prior to the occupation, a resident of the Latino Living Center reported hearing chants of "build the wall" from a nearby fraternity, Zeta Psi.