Student Assembly President Patrick Kuehl ’24, S.A. Vice President Claire Ting ’25 and Student Trustee J.P. Swenson ’25 critiqued the University’s Interim Expressive Activity Policy in a Feb. 15 meeting with Vice President of University Relations Joel Malina and Vice President and General Counsel Donica Varner.
The policy, issued by the University’s executive administration on Jan. 24, established “expectations for Cornell students, faculty and staff engaged in expressive activity” in on-campus spaces with what the University said are “reasonable time, place and manner restrictions.”
Swenson said that the measure was not properly deliberated by the S.A., the Faculty Senate or the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly and that the University Assembly Chair Shelby Lynn Williams ’25 was also not properly informed.
“The concerning part about all this is the lack of transparency from the administration to the S.A.,” Swenson said. “The fact that the University somewhat undermined the structural governance of the school is concerning.”
Kuehl and Swenson said that the S.A. was allowed to express their considerations for the policy during only a 30-minute confidential meeting between the S.A. Executive Committee and Marla Love, Dean of Students, which took place one week before the enactment.
However, the Executive Committee’s suggestions were absent from the final policy, according to Kuehl.
“We did raise lots of concerns [about the policy], and none of those were taken,” Kuehl said. “When we brought up [concerns again on Thursday] morning, they said they hadn’t heard those concerns, and [that’s why] they weren’t implemented.”
Kuehl said that the Executive Committee had concerns about the timing of the policy, the regulations on permitted locations, the use of amplified sound and posters or other protest materials.
LGBTQIA+ Liaison At-Large Karys Everett ’25 criticized the policy, noting that the Coalition for Mutual Liberation’s Feb. 8 “Walk Out To a Die In” divestment protest was shut down based on the new policy measure’s restriction on the use of amplified sound.
“This policy is suppressing students’ ability to protest on this campus,” Everett said, “Anything that we can do to allow for students to be able to protest [in] the way they can is extremely important.”
The policy states that amplified sound is permitted “only on Ho Plaza and in front of Day Hall between Noon and 1 p.m.” and that all other use of amplified sound at any other location or time “is not permitted without prior written approval.”
Swenson identified selective application of the Expressive Action Policy as a major potential flaw. He said that the Feb. 8 protesters were punished for amplified sound, though prior protests have also used megaphones and other sound amplification devices.
“If you break the rules, you should be reprimanded. But there’s been a disconnect, because some groups are being reprimanded while others aren’t,” Swenson said.
Imani Rezaka ’24, S.A. College of Arts and Sciences Representative, described the policy as a reaction to the campus’s current political climate.
“I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that there has been a sudden uptick in protests on campus and now [the University] chooses to suddenly revise the protest rules halfway through the academic year,” Rezaka said.
Rezaka also criticized the restrictions on time, location and amplified sound. She said that the measure purposefully narrows the permitted time to when many students are in class and that the restrictions on amplified sound make protest inaccessible to students who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Jahmal Wallen ’24, undergraduate representative, concurred with Rezaka that the timing of the policy with relation to the current political climate was not coincidental.
Suraj Parikh ’24, S.A. vice president of external affairs, criticized the administration for issuing the Expressive Activity Policy during the Freedom of Expression theme year.
“It’s effectively killing freedom of speech on this campus, because if you need approval to [start] a protest, it’s not freedom of speech,” Parikh said.
Swenson mentioned that the S.A. is working to get an administrator to come to an S.A. meeting to answer questions and have an opportunity to defend the policy. He also identified the need for the S.A. to respond to the policy in disagreement in the next newsletter and draft a new resolution on the policy in formal disapproval.
Parikh also mentioned the possibility of holding a referendum during the Spring elections to get the student body to vote on the administration’s expressive activity statement.
“We shouldn’t let [the administration] steamroll freedom of expression in the ‘Freedom of Expression’ theme year,” Parikh said. “The S.A. [should have] a chance to have input on this policy.”
Correction, Feb. 19, 10:00 p.m.: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Graduate Student Union was not properly informed about the measure. The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly was not properly informed. The Sun regrets this error, and the article has been corrected.