On Nov. 13, a GoFundMe was published detailing the brutal assault and robbery of Kai Liu. Liu is an international student who received a master’s degree from Binghamton University in 2020. Liu was reported to have been walking home around Recreation Park in Downtown Binghamton between the hours of 8:30 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. in October when he was brutally attacked by two people. These people threw Liu to the ground, leaving him unconscious on the side of the road for over an hour before he was able to wake up and flag down a passerby for help. Liu wrote that he believes he was attacked because he was Asian.

After being rushed to Lourdes Hospital, Liu was diagnosed with a severe head injury, acute expansive traumatic epidural hematoma and left temporal fracture. He received emergency neurosurgery to relieve pressure from swelling in the brain and repair his skull fracture. The GoFundMe features several pictures of Liu’s scars post-surgery and the Binghamton Police Department (BPD) report. After nearly four days, Liu was finally discharged and able to go home. At the time of first writing, the GoFundMe donations currently total $13,750 out of a $30,000 goal. As of Dec. 8, the GoFundMe has raised $14,787. Two men have been arrested related to the case.

The GoFundMe was republished by the Asian Student Union’s (ASU) Instagram and the Graduate Student Employees Union’s Facebook pages. The University has yet to publicly comment on the GoFundMe or Liu’s claim that this was a racially motivated attack.

The only public statement from the University regarding the attack came through a B-Line listed under the words “Safety Concern” that ran for four days starting Oct. 20. The statement gave a brief overview detailing the assault of a recent graduate near Recreation Park. However, this shortly lived B-Line announcement did not provide Liu’s assault the attention it deserved. The title of the announcement itself was extremely vague, and it is unlikely that students could have gauged the severity of the assault from such an unclear title alone, let alone clicked on it to learn more. Not only that, but B-Line announcements change rapidly, becoming inaccessible quickly, and giving students only four days to click on a statement buried among other administrative announcements ranging from time management tips to scholarship opportunities was unfair to both Liu and our students. Since the University is reportedly offering support and guidance privately to Liu, there is no reason for the University to withhold publicly coming forward with a B-Line News Addition of its own condemning the horrific acts of violence that occurred so close to our campus.

Given the proximity of the assault to the larger campus community, the University should have thoroughly reported on the attack. Liu’s assault is also a matter of student safety. Liu was attacked by Recreation Park because he lived nearby, as do many other students. This area is heavily populated by people affiliated with BU as well as local Binghamton families. No matter who was attacked, students have a right to know when dangerous and volatile attacks occur right outside their home. Liu’s connection to the University only intensifies the need for BU administration to have better alerted students to his attack. The reports on the GoFundMe, as well as Liu’s doctors, clearly stated that Liu could have lost his life if he had remained outside for any longer than an hour. This was by no means a low-grade attack — Liu very narrowly escaped death. Administrators could easily have sent a B-Alert that went to all phones of registered students, faculty and staff, as they have done multiple times in the past.

Until now, Liu’s story has largely been circulating through social media or word of mouth, leaving a majority of the campus community unaware of such a severe attack. The Editorial Board here at Pipe Dream would also like to acknowledge our own delay reporting on this attack. We wanted to take the time necessary to gather all possible information before releasing a news article, but we acknowledge the time that has passed between our initial awareness of the assault and our reporting. A delay in the story, even for news-gathering purposes, is still a delay in spreading the word. Nevertheless, we wish to state now that we stand firmly in support of Kai Liu, and we thank the ASU for cooperating with our staff and allowing us to communicate with Liu himself in our reporting.

We strongly believe it is the responsibility of the University and its administrators to keep our campus safe. Safety entails much more than preventative measures, and in this case, we are clearly arguing for an improved administrative response. Students should know what happened to Kai Liu so we can both support him — whether through donations, solidarity or both — and look out for each other. The administration has a history of failing to comprehensively report on violence or tragedy surrounding the University, including the drive-by shootings that hit student housing on Leroy Street this September and the death of multiple recent alumni the weekend of Halloween due to fentanyl-laced cocaine. While administrators can continue to offer forms of private support for Liu or send out subtle promotional emails on Narcan training in the case of the drug-related deaths, these do not go far enough in terms of supporting our fellow community members. Neither does a short-lived B-Line that tells students to “walk with purpose” after dark.

Protecting our students and community should come above everything — including bad press. With the increase of anti-Asian violence in the past year, Kai Liu needs more support now than ever. Pipe Dream once reported on BU students facing anti-Asian violence in March 2019 only to be ignored by the University until the Atlanta shootings one year later. We hope that today, in writing about Kai Liu, the University will not continue to make the same mistake.

If anyone wishes to support Kai, donations can be sent through his GoFundMe, linked here.

Editor’s note: This editorial has been updated to correct a factual inconsistency and update the argument accordingly on Dec. 8, 2021. This editorial initially claimed the University had not commented on Liu’s case at all, but has been corrected to reflect the University had a B-Line statement run from Oct. 20 to Oct. 24 regarding the attack. Pipe Dream regrets the error.