PLATTSBURGH, N.Y. — While student protests and racial tensions at the University of Missouri have dominated national news over the last few days, students in New York have also rallied over similar concerns.

 The cartoon featured a smiling black student clad in cardinal-red cap and gown. The character clutches a diploma in a run-down, urban setting.

The Nov. 6 issue of Cardinal Points contained an apology by the editorial board for the illustration and outlined a five-point plan of action that included diversity training for all staff members and a review of the paper’s operating procedures.

The protests at SUNY Plattsburgh called out issues similar to those being discussed at the University of Missouri in Columbia. In Missouri, charges that school administration didn’t take on-campus racism seriously enough led to protests, a student encampment and threats of a boycott from the football team, all of which culminated in the resignation of Timothy Wolfe, the university president. 

@SUNYPlattsburgh‘s BSU isn’ t letting the @_cardinalpoints ‘s front page issue go at all. Would you? pic.twitter.com/rAL8ohqpKH

— KJayy Persaud (@KJayyIsBhaddd) October 27, 2015

At SUNY, senior Katia Nicolas fired up the marchers with her call to action and redress beyond apologies and curriculum changes.

“You can bring as many diversity courses as you want, but at the end of the day, that’s not going to change anything,” said Nicolas, who is majoring in psychology and gender and women studies at the college.

“So we cannot just see this as a lone thing, as like it was a mistake on behalf of Cardinal Points, because it wasn’t just a mistake. It’s something that it has in common with the other universities. It’s that every university in the United States, most of them, if it’s a predominantly white institution, it is racist. It has a racist mindset, and that is something that we have to accept. Just don’t see it as a mistake.”

Nicolas has started a petition and is calling for the resignation of the Cardinal Points management. 

The Plattsburgh Press-Republican was unable to reach Cardinal Points representatives Monday. Maggie McVey is the editor-in-chief at the student newspaper. She could not be immediately reached for comment.

“Because one of the editors-in-chief, she took a diversity course. She had training. So if she got that training, and it didn’t cause her to see that image was problematic, what makes you think that the whole campus taking a diversity course or having a Diversity Week is going to change the entire (institution)? It’s not. It’s not,” Nicolas said.

Senior and biology major Kayla Quezada read a letter to the marchers from Dr. Emily Daniels, who teaches in the Education Department at the college.

“‘What is true as well is that apologies do not undo damage. The ability of this campus to sit with, to listen and to work to heal your pain will be our measure of success’,” said Quezada, reading Daniels’s words. “‘Time, action, commitment and change can help the healing, but the damage is done and this truth needs to be accepted as well as addressed.’”

Caudell writes for The Plattsburgh, New York Press-Republican.