Ming DeMers/Photo editor

The Andrew Dickson White statue reads "divest from death" and "occupation=death" on its base.

January 21, 2025

SCHECHTER | You Poured Paint on the Wrong Guy

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Andrew Dickson White, the first president of Cornell University whose statue is now covered in fake blood, was an impressive figure. State Senator in New York; United States Ambassador to Germany, then Russia, then Germany again; co-founder of our University.

But sometime early this morning, a group of pro-Palestinian protesters vandalized the A.D. White statue on the Arts Quad. To me, their crime shows a laziness to not understand the college community they are a part of and seek to shape. This group of protesters has resorted to looking for attention instead of any meaningful change.

What makes A.D. White an admirable historical figure isn’t his titles or his accolades. He stands apart from many of the exclusionary, old-fashioned educators that permeated early American academia because of his attitude towards change: many today would likely have labeled him a progressive, a reformer. 

White wrote urging for Black Americans to become full United States citizens. He championed conflict thesis, a scientific approach that looked at the tensions between religion and science. He criticized overly dogmatic Christianity. And he co-founded one of America’s first co-educational, multi-racial universities, Cornell. White was a forward thinker — his legacy shows that his work was pointed towards equality. 

Today, the defacement of the A.D. White statue on the Arts Quad shows Cornell’s group of pro-Palestinian activists is more concerned with pulling off a shoddily constructed publicity stunt than any realistic change. Their unintentionally ironic choice of a victim is telling.

Well over a year ago, I wrote a column criticizing the anti-Israel graffiti that pro-Palestinian activists had sprayed all over our campus. At the time, I recognized activists’ enthusiasm for making change in the world, but criticized their breaking the law to make a point. At the time, I saw the graffiti as more of an emotional lashing-out in the wake of Oct. 7th than a purely malicious act of criminality. At the time, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. The protesters no longer deserve that benefit.

Today’s graffiti is different from that of three semesters ago; it’s not an emotional expression nor a campaign of civil disobedience. It’s simply a criminal act that’s telling of how Cornell’s pro-Palestinian activists now approach protest. And it’s an example of how campus protesters, protected by the bubble of academia, can forget the limits of their academic freedom.

Academic freedom, which A.D. White stood firmly behind, does not extend much further than academic discussion. Academic freedom is meant to provide us students a way to express our true, deep thoughts and analyses without fear of repercussion. It’s not a blank check to express ourselves however we’d like or deface whatever property we want. Because that’s not how the world outside of Cornell works — when you step off of this campus, the real world is far less understanding of aggressive expression in the form of criminal acts that disrupt the functioning of society. If that A.D. White statue had been government property for example, the vandals could have landed in jail for up to ten years. Cornell might still press charges. 

Our academic freedom is meant to teach us to defend ideas we care about against a torrent of negativity and contrarianism that flows through the outside world. It’s meant to prepare us to say what we think and stand by it until we’re convinced otherwise. When protesters take that freedom to mean they can act however they want outside the classroom, they betray the development of not only their causes but also their future selves.

Anonymously pouring paint on and defacing the statue of a man who spent time incorporating equality into education is a low blow and reveals deep cracks in the mission of the Coalition for Mutual Liberation, Cornell’s main group of pro-Palestinian protesters. After over a year of protest, an abandoned encampment, the shutdown of a career fair and now this, the group of activists’ actions have simply become petulant. They lack realistic goals. After no results from the administration and a new ceasefire in Gaza, CML continues down its same path, now more aggressively, and hopes for a change that isn’t coming.

If CML saw themselves as real activists, they would disobey civilly, respect academic freedom and create some realistic goals for themselves. For now at least, the activists should do a little research on who they’re defacing.

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