We, the members of the Anthropology Graduate Student Association and the Graduate History Association, write to express our concern over the proposed extensive installation of video cameras across McGraw Hall after its renovation. It has become clear that they have strayed from their initial stated purpose of providing safety to the community and are instead meant to enact surveillance upon the academic community, to monitor us, and to be a reminder that they could potentially be used against any activity of free expression that could be deemed unsavory by the University administration.We believe that the presence of cameras in the elevator is enough for the safety of the community that will regularly use the building, and that any additional cameras will easily be used for reasons beyond their stated purpose, including potentially intimidatory ones.
We raise our concerns about how the surveillance policy in effect, University Policy 8.1, which regulated the use of surveillance cameras, was removed from public view and that revisions to it are happening purely under control of administrative staff who will not be impacted in contrast to the faculty, students, and staff that use the building. We further worry that the renovation of McGraw carried out as proposed will merely be the harbinger of a campus under complete surveillance and where distrust and suspicion towards the people who make the University become the norm. That these removals and revisions were initiated without proper announcement or consultation only heightens our worries.
For “any person any study” to mean anything, the campus must be a welcoming place and not make people who have traditionally been impacted by discriminatory policing tactics feel further discomfort constantly. The creation of a heavily monitored environment will further hinder the University’s commitments to free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge, hindering debate and stifling dissent. Instead of relationships of trust and cooperation, Cornell will be driven by the threat of repercussions and force.
We question the current presence of security cameras outside the building that have been set up since the beginning of the semester, keeping under surveillance nothing but a vacant space, and wonder whether it is meant as an intimidation tactic against the building that houses two departments that have traditionally been among the most vocal in speaking out about current issues. We believe that as a community we can and should do better.
Finally, we worry that the surveillance policy enacted upon the renovation of McGraw will merely be the laboratory for a new Cornell in which top-down policies are implemented and the University’s population is treated in a hostile manner, instead as its reason of being. We demand more democratic processes and open dialogue. We believe that updating policies in a potentially repressive manner is a choice; the choice to update them in a constructive way that will create a better environment for everyone at the university remains open.
Anthropology Graduate Student Association and Graduate History Association
With the support of the following faculty:
Nerissa Russell
Saida Hodžić
Paul Nadasdy
Chloe Ahmann
John Henderson
Kurt Jordan
Viranjini Munasinghe
Alex Nading
Sofia Villenas
Natasha Raheja
Lucinda Ramberg
Noah Tamarkin
Marina Welker
Amiel Bize
Stacey Langwick
Claudia Verhoeven
Russell Rickford
TJ Hinrichs
Paul Friedland
Aaron Sachs
Julilly Kohler-Hausmann