Faculty members added to the chorus of discontentment towards Cornell’s Interim Expressive Activity Policy in a faculty forum meeting held over Zoom on Wednesday, Feb. 28.
Introduced on Jan. 24, the policy imposes limits on student demonstrations, including requiring organizers to register outdoor events with more than 50 people in certain community spaces and limiting the use of amplified sound systems.
Students, faculty, alumni and scholars have condemned the interim policy, questioning its implications for students’ right to protest and noting selective enforcement of the rules.
The Wednesday forum was moderated by Prof. Eve De Rosa, psychology, who is also the dean of faculty. The University introduced the Interim Expressive Activity Policy in response to an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, Rosa explained. The investigation includes six other educational institutions besides Cornell and is in connection with antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment.
The complaints against Cornell brought by the OCR are for alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “based on race, color or national origin.” Although Title VI does not address religious discrimination, former President Trump’s 2019 executive order extended the ban to discrimination based on antisemitism.
Prof. Chris Schaffer, biomedical engineering, objected to the interim policy’s time, manner and place restrictions, citing their “chilling effect” on students’ right to protest.
Schaffer asserted that the current policy’s ambiguous language about the expectation that demonstrations should be registered combined with the warning that “activity that violates this policy will be referred to the appropriate office for disciplinary action” suppresses students’ activism.
Students involved in the Coalition for Mutual Liberation’s Feb. 22 demonstration in Duffield Hall and its Feb. 8 “Walk Out to a Die In” divestment protest were referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards for disciplinary action. CML is a pro-Palestinian umbrella organization that has held several demonstrations on campus.
Schaffer also condemned the interim policy forbidding “sticks, poles and other items that could be used as weapons.”
“This is how people protest,” Schaffer said. “Yes, someone could take that stick and hit somebody else with it and hurt them. [But] trying to prevent that by banning sticks is a massive overreaction.”
Schaffer said that the policy’s banning of sticks creates a difficult enforcement challenge.
“Who is going to be asked to go and wade into a protest with a bunch of signs and identify the people who are holding sticks?” Schaffer added. “It sets things up as antagonistic. It’s patently ridiculous.”
Schaffer similarly expressed concern about the prohibition of candles.
The policy states: “Candles, lamps and other open flame sources are generally not permitted, but may be approved on a case-by-case basis after review by health and safety personnel.”
“[Candlelight vigils] are a long tradition of protest and remembrance in this country. And while I understand that there is a fire risk with any open flame, I do think people can manage candles in a pretty safe way,” Schaffer said.
Other faculty members voiced confusion about how the policy would be applied due to ambiguity in the policy’s language.
Prof. Hadas Ritz, mechanical and aerospace engineering, asked if a specific protest that took place in her academic building during University hours violated the interim policy. She said that students went through her building, chanting phrases that she could not make out.
De Rosa said that she believed the specific protest mentioned did not constitute a violation.
“Registration [of events] is expected, not mandatory,” De Rosa explained.
In response, Schaffer attested that he interpreted the policy stating that “registration is expected for all indoor events” as meaning the protest violated the policy.
Ritz urged greater clarity in the policy.
“It’s not really clear to me how this [policy] will be interpreted or what is or isn’t prohibited,” Ritz said. “In the language that’s there, I wouldn’t be able to interpret it accurately, so that’s maybe a shortcoming of the policy.”
De Rosa said that before presenting the first draft of the interim policy in January, Vice President and General Counsel Donica Varner consulted academic deans, the University Faculty Committee and all the executive committees for each assembly.
February and March are considered a period for public comment before the interim policies are taken to the Executive Policy Review Group, which can permanently approve the policy, according to De Rosa.
Faculty questioned the University’s plans to punish students during the interim period considering the policies are subject to change in the future.
De Rosa said that students who face disciplinary action will be disciplined under the new interim policy, not any revision of it.
Cornell Media Relations said that federal law guards the privacy of students’ educational records when asked in a Feb. 12 email for updates about the disciplinary action for participants in the Feb. 8 divestment protest.
Jim DelRosso ’99 MPA ’03, assistant director at Catherwood Library, said that inconsistency and ambiguity in the policy itself may discourage student protest.
“If we’re being told this policy is changing, there’s the question of which policies will students and community members be held accountable for,” DelRosso said. “That inconsistency and questioning in and of itself can cause a chilling effect.”
Prof. Richard Bensel, government, echoed the importance of ensuring students are aware of how they will be punished if they violate the policies.
“You have to be aware of what the punishment may be to decide whether the protest will be worth your while. When the central admin refuses to say what the punishment is, you cannot make that calculation,” Bensel said.
De Rosa said that any discipline that happens will be consolidated at the end of the year in an annual report with names removed.
“We will know what the outcomes were for any violations, but it will not be tied to any individual identity,” De Rosa said.
De Rosa also clarified that aspects of the interim policy, such as the restriction of amplified sound from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., were already part of the University’s existing Code of Conduct. The Office of the Assemblies released a comparison chart highlighting how the interim policy compares to existing policies and procedures.
Schaffer emphasized that the disruption of University operations already occurs due to more trivial events than student protests.
“I don’t know about other folks, but Slope Day interrupts normal University operations and teaching far more than any protest I’ve ever been involved with. I live on North Campus [and] fraternity and sorority rush is hugely disruptive to folks’ living environment.” Schaffer said.
Schaffer ultimately said that peaceful protests do not significantly erode the educational environment.
“There’s a lot of things that happen on campus that cause minor disruption to teaching, research and normal University operations that we celebrate,” Schaffer said. “There’s no reason that peaceful protests that unearth issues we should think about shouldn’t also be celebrated, and this policy is just the opposite of that.”
Clarification, March 5, 9:11 a.m.: This article has been updated to include the graduation years of Jim DelRosso.