Following the events in Charlottesville this past weekend, Cornell President Martha Pollack sent a statement to students condemning the action by white supremacist groups as “antithetical” to both the nation and the University.
“The white supremacists’ support for racism, anti-Semitism and raw hatred is vile and antithetical to what this nation and Cornell stand for,” Pollack said in the email.
In this condemnation, Pollack recalled Cornell’s founding statement as an institution for “any person,” saying that “we remain resolute in our commitment to addressing bigotry whenever it arises on our campuses or within our communities,” Pollack’s statement read.
Pollack also encouraged students to “to take a moment and specifically reach out to those who continue to be targeted” in order to “let them know that they are a valued part of our Cornell community.”
Within his leadership role, Student Assembly president, Jung Won Kim ’18 acted to reflect his support for students affected by the events in Charlottesville, both at University of Virginia — where much of the violence took place — and at colleges nationwide.
Kim signed a statement in solidarity along with more than 50 undergraduate student body presidents across the country in an effort to “to not only support the Student Body at the University of Virginia but to make clear our advocacy for the victimized and marginalized students on all our campuses,” the statement read.
“College campuses are spaces that students should be able to call home. Not places of violence, hate, and racism,” the statement read. “We will continue to support students and universities in their peaceful resistance to violence, racism, white supremacy, bigotry, and acts of terrorism on our own campuses and beyond.”
Like Pollack, Kim said that it was “fitting” given Cornell’s mission “to send[s] in support of students at UVA against hatred, against bigotry and against violence like this.”
“For Cornell students, I think it’s very important and meaningful because — I’m a minority myself — we have a lot of minority students on campus, people who might be affected by these kind of things,” Kim said. “I thought it was very important that our student body also steps up and joins other student body presidents of other institutions in signing in solidarity with the students at UVA and the people of Charlottesville.”