Re: “Administrators Discuss Disciplining Protestors, Monitoring Faculty in Private Hillel Parents Meeting” (news, 10/2)
Located inside Sage Chapel is a stained glass artwork commemorating the short lives of civil rights activists: “In memory of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and our classmate Michael Shwerner who were slain during the 1964 voter registration drive in Mississippi and all others who died for the advancement of civil rights and racial equality in our country.”
Just inside Willard Straight Hall, there is a memorial praising the takeover of the building by Black students in 1969. This pivotal event, known as the Willard Straight Hall Takeover, was a response to the burning of a cross in front of the Wari Cooperative and a demand for greater representation and rights for Black students on campus.
On Oct. 2, Joel Malina, vice president of University Relations at Cornell University, had this to say about about welcoming hatred and violence to campus: “If there were a faculty member that invited a KKK representative to speak or a student group that invited a KKK representative to speak, yes, we would allow that.” His suggestion has provoked fear, outrage and disbelief in a large number of the student and faculty body. Such a statement demonstrates a profound disconnect from history and serves to undermine the very principles of free speech and assembly that, ironically, our university has made its goal for the academic year.
The Ku Klux Klan, a terrorist group that pursues a goal of white supremacy, has a long and bloody history of terror and violence and is emblematic of hate and bigotry. In entertaining the idea of having a hate group on campus, Malina suggests that the KKK can meet on campus in an ethical and respectable manner, an idea that is not only deeply misguided but also fundamentally offensive. These meetings do not foster healthy discourse; they perpetuate a legacy of terror and exclusion. To suggest otherwise is to ignore the painful truths of our history and to show an egregious disregard of the experiences of countless individuals and communities, including our own, who have suffered under the weight of such hate.
Furthermore, administration must restrain from comparing movements on campus such as those demonstrated by Students for Justice in Palestine and the Coalition for Mutual Liberation to that of the KKK as it engages in a dangerous false equivalency. Equating student-led movements advocating for the rights and liberation of oppressed peoples with a historically violent and racist organization like the KKK dilutes the gravity of the legacy of terror and racial violence. Equating civil rights movements with hate groups undermines the credibility of the institution’s commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive and safe academic environment.
In the last academic year we saw the arrest and expulsion of Patrick Dai — who made inflammatory and threatening remarks toward the Jewish community on campus. The only logical conclusion is that the University has a responsibility to take a firm stance against Joel Malina’s welcomeness to offering platforms to hate groups to speak on campus in which all identities and orientations of Cornell’s student body and faculty will be threatened.
Signed,
— Amira Jones ’25