“Genocide is abhorrent, and Cornell condemns calls for the genocide of any people,” former President Martha Pollack said last December. “An explicit call for genocide, to kill all members of a group of people, would be a violation of our policies.” This past week, a Cornell spokesperson confirmed to The Sun that Pollack’s statement is still, in fact, University policy.
But when it comes to standing by this basic rule aimed at keeping murderous hate groups off our campus, Cornell’s administration has repeatedly broken its promise.
Last week, The Sun reported on a private meeting with Hillel parents, where Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina was asked whether a Ku Klux Klan representative, if invited by a faculty member or student group, would be allowed to speak at Cornell. “Yes,” he responded, “we would allow that.”
The Sun gave Malina the opportunity to clarify his statement, and he chose not to walk it back.
This isn’t the first time that Cornell’s administration has unapologetically flirted with white supremacists under the pretense of free speech. Last semester, at a University-backed event with Ann Coulter, then-Provost Michael Kotlikoff made a similar statement. “I would support their right to speak at Cornell,” he said when asked if the University would green-light a neo-Nazi or white nationalist speaking event on campus.
The University has a commitment to viewpoint diversity and free speech. But when that speech veers into discrimination and targeted harassment, creating an unsafe environment for marginalized students, that’s where the line must be drawn.
Without question, bringing a genocidal extremist, including a KKK member or neo-Nazi, to campus to spew their vitriol clearly crosses that line — and obviously contradicts University policy.
The KKK is a domestic terrorist organization. Its mission is to spread fear and hate through campaigns of violence and terror against Black Americans and anyone who stands against oppression.
In 1964, Michael Schwerner ’61 and two other civil rights activists were murdered by the KKK in Mississippi. The three are memorialized in a stained glass window in Sage Chapel. Malina’s attitude is not just reckless — it dishonors Schwerner’s legacy and the countless students who bear the scars of KKK brutality in their family histories.
Students must be able to learn and express themselves without fear that genocidal hatemongers, who are opposed to their very existence, will be welcomed on campus.
The Sun calls on Cornell’s administration to immediately apologize and recommit itself to its own policy. If Cornell’s current leaders can’t enforce their own rules, it’s on the Board of Trustees to find ones who will.
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