By wpengine October 3, 2003
The Cornell University Open Doors, Open Hearts, Open Minds statement declares: “Free expression is essential to this mission, and provocative ideas lawfully expressed are an expected result.” Although most students and faculty agree that free speech at Cornell is not in imminent danger, some conservatives on campus argue that the campus’s political climate stifles open discussion. Expressing the opinion that many students seem to hold, Ben Gruberman ’05, managing editor of Turn Left, said, “Overall, I’d given Cornell a fairly good grade in terms of their positions on speech.” “I think it’s always been quite strong and healthy,” said Henrik N. Dullea ’61, senior consultant to President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77. However, Joseph Sabia grad, a columnist for the Sun who previously wrote for the Cornell Review, holds a different viewpoint of free speech on campus. “I think overall, the state of the world at Cornell in terms of free speech is poor,” he said. Sabia thinks that many people have a “free speech for me, but not for thee” attitude. The official University policy on free speech, stated in the Campus Code of Conduct, says, “Freedom to teach and to learn, to express oneself and be heard, and freedom to assemble and lawfully protest peacefully are essential to academic freedom and the continuing function of the university as an educational institution.” It continues to explain that students and faculty may freely express themselves through protests, demonstrations, signs and by inviting speakers to campus. “My experience has been that we protect it quite vigorously,” said Kent Hubbell ’67, the Robert W. and Elizabeth C. Staley Dean of Students. However, Prof. Richard Baer, natural resources, argues that although speech is never explicitly limited on campus, the administration implicitly limits dialogue on key political and ethical issues. “The reality of Cornell University is that in some respects it is a very parochial institution,” he said. “Students are exposed to a very narrow range of ideas.” In particular, he believes that the administration does not hire faculty with dissenting, often conservative, views. “There’s widespread and pervasive censorship by omission,” he said. “People with truly different points of view don’t get hired, they don’t get tenured.” He pointed out that although faculty in some departments have disparate ideas, in the government department, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the College of Human Ecology and other departments that address political and ethical issues, diverse viewpoints are rare. He thinks that the administration makes an effort not to hire faculty with strong religious beliefs. “In the field of Christian normative ethics, there is almost total censorship,” he said. This lack of diversity of ideas discussed in classes affects students’ individual freedom of speech, he said. “If students mainly hear one point of view on various issues … it becomes more difficult for them to express opposing views,” he said. “Speech will always be constrained if students are not exposed to different ideas.” Similarly, other conservatives on campus have said they have felt stifled by a “politically correct” climate. Joseph Pylman ’04, editor-in-chief of the Cornell Review, has said he has seen students feel the need to “self-censor.” “They’re afraid to speak their minds,” he said. “If your views aren’t mainstream, you’ll be ridiculed.” This opinion may not be limited just to conservatives on campus. A self-proclaimed liberal, Daniel Sternberg ’06, said, “A lot of anything said that doesn’t mirror the real liberal views on campus … people start to censor. It can be hypocritical, and I think it drives the more conservative people away because they’re feeling threatened.” However, some people on campus feel that conservatives may be greatly exaggerating the issue. “I think it’s a dishonest trick [for] the American Right to present itself as an oppressed minority,” said Prof. Anna Marie Smith, government. “The idea that American conservatives are oppressed is patently false.” Referring to the Review, she commented, “The idea that they don’t have the freedom [to print] low-life garbage journalism is ridiculous.” Conservatives who believe political and ethical dialogue is lacking on campus have proposed a variety of solutions to the problem. Baer believes that the administration should make a concerted effort to hire faculty with diverse ideas and cut back on many of the diversity programs in the University. “Much of the talk about diversity by the University is exceedingly hypocritical,” he said. “Pushing diversity just in terms of skin color and so on, this has tended to lower diversity in terms of the political spectrum.” Sabia believes that the administration should adopt the Academic Bill of Rights promoted by Students for Academic Freedom. The document states that a university should not hire or fire faculty based on political views, that professors should discuss a variety of viewpoints in their classes and that students should have full intellectual freedom. Although freedom of speech on campus has not been seriously challenged lately, it has been an issue during various points in Cornell’s history. Most recently, protesters burned the Cornell Review on two different occasions in 1997. At a rally against an administrative announcement on program housing and the Review’s printing of an article on Ebonics, protesters burned copies of the newspaper in a barrel. Sabia, who was at the event, said protesters also tossed the barrel at Ying Ma ’97, the Review’s editor-in-chief at the time. “It was a horrific, scary time,” he said. “I hope it never happens again.” Later that year, Shaka Davis ’98 burned copies of the Review in front of Trillium Dining to protest a cartoon on abortion which the Review ran. Accounts of the number of copies burned varies; the Sun reported that Davis burned 500 copies, while Dullea claims that Davis burned only 50. The incident attracted national press, with columnist Nat Hentoff condemning the administration’s lack of action against Davis in the Washington Post and Village Voice. Archived article by Shannon Brescher
By wpengine October 3, 2003
Walking around campus inevitably leads you to see at least one person sporting a kelly green t-shirt with the logo “Ithaca is Gorges” emblazoned across the chest in white letters. After being at the University for a while, the shirt becomes a part of the Cornell landscape. But who ever stops to think about where it came from? “It just popped into my brain,” said Howard Cogan ’50, owner of the advertising agency Howard Cogan Associates, which came up with the idea over 20 years ago. Initially the logo was published as a photo illustration on the cover of a weekly publication called the Town Crier. “Right off the bat, we allowed people in the community to reproduce it. [We] let people use it and have fun with it.” Cogan gave the logo to the Ithaca Chamber of Commerce, which made the first “Ithaca is Gorges” merchandise — the green-and-white bumper stickers that are still sold today. The logo has always been the same: white lettering with a waterfall for the letter “l.” The first t-shirts were made when Abdul Razak Sheikh, the owner of T-Shirt Expressions on the Commons, asked Cogan for permission to use the design. “We started creating the t-shirts 20 years ago,” Sheikh said. “It sold, but not like the last three years. The student community from both colleges picked it up as their shirt — it became a fashion statement.” Now an Ithaca fan can find almost anything with the “Ithaca is Gorges” slogan printed on it — t-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, cards, buttons, magnets, stickers, bath towels, tote bags and even Nalgene water bottles. The t-shirt and bumper stickers are the most popular and have become a method of identification for Cornellians and Ithacans throughout the country and around the world. Ann Maynard ’06 bought her t-shirt at the beginning of her freshman year. While at home in Turlock, Calif., she wore it to a Starbucks where a woman asked her if she was from Ithaca. It turned out that the woman lived in Ithaca and was visiting a sister in Turlock. Worldwide Exposure Eliot Brusman ’07 wanted to see how people back home in Atlanta, Ga., would react to the shirt. “They’d say, ‘What the hell is that t-shirt? It makes no sense,'” he said. “No one has seen a gorge in Atlanta, so they don’t know what it is.” “My son had [the bumper sticker] on his Volkswagen when he went to Washington, D.C. for law school,” Cogan said. “He used to come back to his car in the parking lot and somebody would have penciled a note under the windshield wipers to say, ‘Hey Ithaca, I’m from Ithaca too!'” An “Ithaca is Gorges” bumper sticker was even spotted in Beijing, China, stuck to the back of a rearview mirror on a Chinese bus, Cogan said. Ironically, the man behind the logo found all around the world isn’t originally from Ithaca. Cogan, born in Philadelphia, moved to Ithaca in 1936 as a five-year-old. His first memory of the city is walking to Belle Sherman Elementary School with his collie Ichabod Crane — “Ichy” — who would wait all day by the school for Cogan to finish and then walk home with him again. After graduating from Ithaca High School, Cogan married his high school sweetheart and studied speech and drama at Cornell. He ended up writing advertising copy for a local radio station and eventually wrote radio commercials for businesses in town. “I got contracts to write radio commercials and to voice them as well,” he said. “It was a lot of fun; it beat the hell outta working for a living. Along the way I ran a couple of businesses, including Howard Cogan Associates.” Right now, Cogan is “working toward retirement,” and he enjoys the idea that his design has come to represent Ithaca. “It’s nice to think the idea … has been picked up and enjoyed by people in lots of places,” Cogan said. “I grew up here and my family lived in several different places near the waterways, and we used to go swimming and fishing in the gorges. It’s a great town to grow up in, marry your sweetheart and raise your own kids. Even if you leave Ithaca, it’s a wonderful place to come home to.” Archived article by Katy Bishop