It is abundantly clear to me, even seven years and 6,000 miles removed from Ithaca, that the weight of the violence in Israel and Gaza has strained our community immeasurably. The September pro-Palestinian protest at Statler Hotel and the University’s response to suspend and attempt to disenroll one of its leaders, Ph.D. candidate Momodou Taal, both epitomized and exacerbated those tensions. This all occurred before the re-election of Donald Trump in November.
The situation had been difficult as it were, yet the problem we now face is one of a different scale and character. The Trump administration’s recent move to cancel approximately $400 million in grants earmarked for Columbia University must surely provoke anxiety in our own leadership at Cornell, having been one of 60 institutions sent a warning letter regarding what the government describes as an insufficient response to “antisemitic harassment” under Title VI. There is reasonable fear that we could be next — that our research, our faculty and our standing as an institution may be at existential risk.
Confronted with this same dilemma, Columbia has so far chosen to cooperate with the government. Katrina Armstrong, Columbia’s interim president, released a statement promising to work alongside the Trump administration to address its demands. Only a few days later, Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident of the U.S. and Columbia graduate student whose protest activities resembled those of Taal at Cornell, was taken from his campus dorm by I.C.E. officials with little pushback from the university.
This is a grave mistake.
In this extraordinary moment, we must take it upon ourselves to earnestly remember our most core purpose as an institution. In his 1866 letter to Mary Ann, Ezra Cornell wrote:
"… the destiny of the Cornell University was fixed… it will become a power in the land which will control and mold the future of this great state, and carry it onward and upward in its industrial development, and support of civil and religious liberty, and its guarantee of equal rights and equal laws to all men."
Perhaps the reason that Ezra affixed to our “destiny” so directly the concept of equal rights and liberty was because he had the foresight to recognize, in the immediate aftermath of the civil war, that an entity tasked with the rigorous analysis and creation of ideas may one day become the target of those for whom such ideas presented threat or inconvenience. I am skeptical, given the historical context of when it was written, that the actions of Taal — or Khalil, for that matter — would fall outside of the scope of civil liberties which Ezra described.
Days ago, Taal pre-empted a similar fate to Khalil by suing the Trump administration, claiming that Executive Orders 14188 and 14161 violate the First and Fifth amendment rights of protestors. Such a complaint seems prescient: the broad nature of the executive orders, including provisions in the latter against those who “bear hostile attitudes” against American “culture” or the U.S. government, would appear on their face to provide for the arrest and deportation of any non-citizen individual whose speech offends the current administration.
Cornell’s leadership is now faced with a sobering choice: does it follow Columbia’s lead, and sit quietly as one of its own is targeted, to appease the government and — maybe — preserve its funding contracts? Or does it refuse, and stand resolute in defense of not only its own founding principles but those of the nation which it has called home for more than a century?
We must take the latter course. And when, inevitably, we are met in the future with a similar dilemma, we must take the latter course again.
The Trump administration has no interest in combating antisemitism. Its goal, evident in its broad crackdown on fields of research and study that it opposes politically, is to chill dissenting speech and scare institutions of higher learning into submission. Every instance of capitulation, no matter how seemingly reasonable or benign, yields to the administration more power. It chips away at our foundations. It threatens the continuity of our university far more comprehensively than the revocation of federal grants could ever hope.
To those who were not in support of the protests, and see these acts as a means by which to restore peace: do not believe them. Do not, in pursuit of a momentary tranquility, hand to those whom you cannot trust the weapons with which to wield against you. Do not mistake who your real enemy is — it is not your neighbor with whom you disagree vehemently, even in matters central to your being, but rather they who would use your existence as a cudgel with which to blunt the liberties of those standing next to you. It will be turned towards you the very instant you cease to be useful to them.
No matter how entrenched they may appear, all regimes built upon injustice are fundamentally unstable; be it in months, years, or even decades, this moment will pass. Yet the record of decisions we made during this time will remain forever. Let us conduct ourselves such that we are able to look back upon who we were today with pride.
Richard E. Ulbricht is a 2018 graduate from the College of Arts & Sciences and currently works to deliver humanitarian aid to crisis-affected populations. He can be reached at richardeulbicht@gmail.com.
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