The Faculty Senate is responsible for representing the faculty’s views to the administration, according to the governance’s official handbook. But the controversial Interim Expressive Activity Policy was implemented “without discussion, debate, input or a vote by the Faculty Senate,” according to a proposed resolution.
At its March 13 meeting, the Faculty Senate proposed a resolution concerning its ability to consider and vote on the interim policy, two days after the University lessened the policy’s regulations on event registration, the use of open flames and postering.
Implemented on Jan. 24, the interim policy added restrictions on expressive activity, including measures against carrying sticks and poles in protests and limited hours for amplified sound. Faculty and students have widely condemned the interim policy due to concerns about the policy’s free expression consequences.
At its meeting, the Faculty Senate criticized administration’s lack of consultation with shared governance bodies while developing the policy.
“This has been a flawed process from the very start,” said Prof. Risa Lieberwitz, industrial and labor relations. “What we had was the University administration issuing interim policies without consultation with the Faculty Senate. There apparently were confidentiality-imposed meetings. … Administrators were consulted, but there was no consultation with us.”
Lieberwitz called for a full review of all provisions in the interim policy, not just the revised elements.
She also expressed that the Faculty Senate should engage in a “full discussion and debate about the interim policy,” citing an “obligation” and “jurisdiction to vote on that policy including any and all Faculty Senate resolutions for amending the policy.”
Beyond expressing the desire for greater input in the policy’s continual revision process, senate members also discussed their unease about the updated policy’s implementation and enforcement.
Prof. Shannon Gleeson, ILR, who also serves as the department chair of global labor and work, raised several questions about what constitutes a disruptive protest on campus and how the University plans to address the long-term consequences of additional policing for disruptive activity on campus.
“I would like to know more about [how the Cornell University Police Department] and partner enforcement agencies on this campus are going to be trained around this, because the long-term consequences of fueling additional policing and surveillance of our campus community are something I think we want to avoid,” Gleeson said.
Faculty members including Prof. Saida Hodžić, anthropology, expressed alarm about the policy’s consequences falling unevenly on vulnerable students from specific communities, noting past instances of students who have had negative experiences with CUPD.
“I’ve been here for just over a decade and I’ve occasionally heard testimonies from students who were intimidated and threatened by the Cornell police, who have had their email messages surveilled in response to their free expression, who were called on their cell phones by Cornell police officers and harangued into conversations they weren’t that prepared to have — especially not in that context — and then who felt isolated in disciplinary hearings,” Hodžić said.
Hodžić proposed an amendment to the resolution for “Cornell [to] authorize and conduct an independent investigation into its history of police and disciplinary charges against students’ political activity and freedom of speech.”
However, Prof. Alexander Vladimirsky, mathematics, was “personally pleased” to see the announced reductions to the interim policy. Vladimirsky stated that the updates clarified some of the ambiguity of the original policy so he could envision the policy garnering more general support in the future.
“While a full consensus is probably unachievable, it is very important to have a broad agreement before the permanent policy is put in place,” Vladimirsky said.
February and March are considered a period of public comment before the policies are formally taken to the Executive Policy Review Group which can approve the final expressive activity policy, according to Prof. Eve De Rosa, psychology, in a faculty forum on Feb. 28.
Several faculty members also expressed a need to repair the overall trust between administration, faculty members and shared governance bodies.
“I feel very strongly that my trust and the trust of so many members of the community has been broken by the way that this policy has been formulated and thus far communicated and implemented,” Hodžić said. “I understand as it’s been explained to us that the University is under pressure, but I feel like we are at this crossroads of either accepting the right-wing restrictions on the democratic space or rejecting these restrictions and navigating them.”
Provost Michael Kotlikoff reiterated the Faculty Senate and administration’s responsibility to cooperate on the interim policy.
“I think we owe it to all of our community to have a duty of care and to listen and to construct policies that are fair for everybody,” Kotlikoff said.
Avery Wang ’27 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].