Top administrators have said that Cornell would allow Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists to speak on campus if invited by a faculty member or student group.
So which, if any, hate and extremist groups would be barred from campus events?
The Sun repeatedly asked a University spokesperson whether representatives of several hate and extremist groups would hypothetically be permitted to speak on campus if invited by a faculty member or student organization. After three requests for comment, Cornell refused each time to answer which of the groups it would or would not allow.
The list The Sun sent includes Hamas, Hezbollah, the Wagner Group and the Aryan Nation and right-wing U.S.-based extremists the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. The Sun asked the University to identify by name which groups from the list, if any, would not be allowed at a campus speaking event.
“Speakers who threaten or pose a risk to our community would not be approved through the events registration process,” the spokesperson stated in an email response but refused to comment both over the phone and via email specifically on the groups in question.
When a Sun editor brought up that many students might be alarmed by Cornell’s refusal to ban Hamas outright, the spokesperson said, “Thanks for the feedback.”
“I am horrified by even the suggestion that a terrorist group like Hamas could be invited to speak at Cornell,” said Amanda Silberstein ’26, vice president for Cornell Chabad and Cornellians for Israel.
Laura Beltz, director of policy reform at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonpartisan free-speech advocacy group, said the University’s refusal to answer the hypothetical question after saying it would allow various white supremacist groups on campus could be seen as biased.
“Affirming to accept one [extremist group] while refusing to answer another shows that one is favored over the other,” Beltz told The Sun. “Cornell should take care to make clear any type of speaker is allowed as consistent with the First Amendment, assuming the invitation of that speaker doesn’t violate the law or threaten security.”
When asked by The Sun, Cornell did not elaborate on what it deemed a threat to student security or what the screening process for speakers looks like.
Last spring, after a University-backed event with controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter ’84, then-provost and current Interim President Michael Kotlikoff told The Sun that he “would support their right to speak at Cornell,” when asked whether the University would allow a neo-Nazi or white nationalist speaking event on campus.
Early last month, The Sun reported on a private meeting with Hillel parents, where Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina was asked whether a KKK representative would be allowed to speak at Cornell if invited by a faculty member or student group. “Yes,” Malina said, “we would allow that.”
Malina’s remarks on the KKK were broadly condemned by student groups across campus, including Black Students United, which rallied outside Day Hall last month and called on the University to fire him.
In response to the pushback, Malina expanded on his statement in an Oct. 8 letter to The Sun in which he condemned the KKK, though he did not go as far as to say that the hate group would not be allowed on campus.
“To be clear, the KKK is abhorrent by any standard, and Cornell University would never invite a representative of the KKK to campus,” Malina wrote. “Any speaker invited by a faculty member or student organization is reviewed by the University Events Team and is only allowed to come to campus if the safety of all in our community can be assured.”
Leena Jalees ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].