The Cornell community now has another publication to help satisfy its intellectual curiosity: the Cornell American.
With the slogan “Limited Government. Traditional Values. America First” on its cover, the Cornell American proclaims itself in its first issue to be an “independent journal of conservative principle.”
It is named after a paper of the same name that was founded in 1992 and ran until 1996.
“The Cornell American will be the standard-bearer of conservatism on campus because we champion the traditional, masculine, Christian values of America,” said Ryan Horn grad, the new publication’s president.
According to its first issue, the paper’s mission is to “raise a traditional American perspective, so as to balance debate on campus and to further conservative ideals.”
A full-page editorial in the March issue entitled “Why a Conservative Newspaper?” gives examples of Republican supporters on college campuses.
In the editorial, leftists are described as believing that their “mission is utopian, their intensity religious. To question them is blasphemy.”
The publication’s three goals, as listed in the editorial, are to “make life more pleasant for conservatives,” to “make life hell for leftists,” and to, by doing so, “awaken the passions of undecided readers and rally them around the flag of conservatism.”
The cover story of this first issue was “Unholy Matrimony, The Case Against Gay Marriage.”
Other topics in the March issue include short articles on the political affiliations of commencement speakers at colleges, gun control and abortion, along with longer articles on immigration and the possibility of a program house for conservatives on the Cornell campus.
Just mentioning the Cornell American can bring up heated debate in some circles.
“I definitely respect their right to free speech, and I’m glad they feel comfortable expressing their opinions,” said Lara Chausow ’05.
“However, some of the information they portray is false, and that sets a dangerous precedent for future political debates,” she added.
The paper was welcomed by some, however.
“I’m probably never going to agree with very much [of] what’s in there,” said Dan Greenwald ’05, “but I do think this campus has a lack of right-wing perspectives, and it makes us better thinkers if we’re exposed to them.”
The Sun could not reach a representative from the Cornell Review for comment.
Archived article by Lauryn Slotnick