Editor’s Note: Yesterday, Professor Begüm Adalet, along with other professors, delivered brief remarks at the end of the Faculty Senate meeting, calling on faculty to carefully deliberate and vote on the Expressive Activity Policy. The Sun reported on Provost John Silicano’s response, who said of faculty response that “I realize this is, in some sense, theater.” Adalet’s remarks have been edited for style.
Thank you, Eve, for giving me the floor. I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about the
Expressive Activity Policy that we will get to see and hopefully vote on at the next Senate
meeting.
This is an issue that’s near and dear to my heart. For those of you who don’t know, I am from
Turkey, which has been the site of crackdown on dissent, academic repression and the slow but
steady dismantling of university autonomy in recent years. Even public universities in Turkey
have been subject to the violation of their long-standing norms of faculty governance. This has
included the intensified policing of students, the arbitrary dismissal and suspension of faculty
members and the top-down appointment of administrators officially affiliated with the
governing party to the highest ranks of university governance, as we’ve also seen in places like
Florida.
The far-right attack on the autonomy of higher education institutions is a global phenomenon.
When the House Ways and Means Committee wrote Cornell leadership in March to interpret our
campus policies for us and demanded the punishment of our students, it felt eerily familiar and
frightening. The draconian and disproportionate disciplinary measures brought on our students
reflect the priorities of politicians, rather than our principles as educators. I am constantly
worried for our students who are issued suspensions without due process, who are described in
criminal terms as “repeat violators” by our administration — language that they took from the
Ways and Means committee letter, and students who risk losing access to University resources,
their livelihood and their very ability to stay in this country. I, as well as many other faculty who
have witnessed this repression elsewhere, have been terrified that we can expect to be surveilled
in our spaces of teaching and research.
Given this backdrop, I was cautiously hopeful when the university administration announced a
new committee on expressive activity policy. Hopeful because of a renewed commitment to
principles of shared governance and transparency, but cautious because the committee includes
only one representative from the College of Arts and Sciences, none at all from Industrial and Labor Relations or the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.
In other words, those of us who study language, philosophy and design; those of us who have
insight into the history and meaning of concepts like civil disobedience, social movements,
protests, democracy, disruption and violence; those of us with expertise in sound, acoustics,
building layout, shared spaces have not been included in writing the new policy.
But we as faculty members and senators now have a chance to restore democratic deliberation
and the autonomy of our University from the whims of politicians. It is my hope that we will use
this chance, to carefully review and deliberate on the updated expressive activity policy, that we
will vote on it, and insist that our vote be binding on this crucial aspect of our shared campus
life.
Thank you.
–Begüm Adalet
Assistant Professor, Department of Government