Interim President Michael Kotlikoff and Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi fielded questions at Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting on a wide range of issues from concerns that Cornell’s cooperative housing system is underfunded and mismanaged to whether calls for genocide count as protected speech.
The meeting was briefly interrupted when two pro-Palestinian protesters wearing keffiyehs and with pink paint on their hands and faces walked in front of Kotlikoff and Lombardi and placed a sign reading “blood is on your hands” on the table in front of them.
Kotlikoff said “thank you” to the activists before continuing with the questioning.
Housing Process
Chair of the S.A. Dining Services Committee Ezra Galperin ’27 voiced frustration over how students had been “blindsided” for the last two years during the housing selection process. He mentioned that students are currently living in forced triples and quintuples this fall due to insufficient housing.
Lombardi explained that the housing window shift from spring to fall semester led to increased demand from upperclassmen students and expressed difficulties in calculating housing allotments.
“This fall, we didn’t have to utilize study lounges or anything like that,” Lombardi told the Assembly, adding that he wished “it was an exact science and we could do these analytics without any errors at all, but there is an art to this in terms of human decisions.”
Greek Life
Student Health Advisory Committee Chair Davian Gekman ’27 confronted the administrators over what he saw as their lack of support for a Greek Life system in decline.
“Does the administration support Greek Life?” Gekman, who serves as president of the Kappa Sigma fraternity, asked. “Or is it just something that they’ve given off to the students and let them decide if they want it to continue or let it slowly die off?”
“Let me just start off with the administration supports Greek Life,” Kotlikoff said, adding that his son was an active member of Greek Life during and after his time at Cornell. Lombardi said he was open to holding a “strategic conversation” with the Interfraternity Council about the future of Greek Life on campus.
Protected Speech and Hate Speech
Last year, former President Martha Pollack said in a statement to the Cornell community that “an explicit call for genocide, to kill all members of a group of people, would be a violation of our policies.” Student-Elected Trustee J.P. Swenson ’25 pointed out that former American Civil Liberties Union President Nadine Strossen said in an April 29 panel with Kotlikoff that “calls for genocide are protected speech under First Amendment principles.”
Swenson asked Kotlikoff to clarify whether that policy prohibiting explicitly genocidal rhetoric is in line with Cornell’s commitment to free speech.
“When we get to direct calls for violence, that gets into a careful area,” Kotlikoff said, explaining that Cornell must balance its First Amendment values with legal requirements that federally funded universities prevent and alleviate hostile environments based on race, color or national origin.
Last year, Cornell and six other educational institutions were placed under investigation by the Department of Education over their handling of antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment. The University also faced scrutiny from Congress over Cornell’s approach to protecting Jewish students from harassment and discrimination on campus.
Co-Op Housing
In reference to student concerns over having to shoulder the financial burden of co-op housing maintenance, Deputy Vice President of External Affairs Flora Meng ’27 asked Lombardi how co-ops can get more administrative assistance. Lombardi communicated that he has been meeting with house leadership on these issues.
He also explained that the current funding structure was established by the original co-op leadership at the time of the houses’ founding. He explained that the intention was to give houses the autonomy to set their own rates, but that if current leadership wants more University funding, there should be further discussion.
Kendall Eddington ’27 can be reached at [email protected].
Hamna Waseem ’27 can be reached at [email protected].