Editorials
Editorial

EDITORIAL: Bring Back Interim Suspension Statement Policy

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The Student Assembly will consider a resolution reinstating the University’s interim suspension statement policy today, proposed by Joseph Anderson ’20 and Natalia Hernandez ’21. Prior to the 2017-2018 academic year, the University released statements when campus organizations were placed on interim suspension — a status that limits organizations’ activities while they are being investigated for infractions — but it has not done so this year. We strongly urge the Student Assembly to pass this resolution, and for President Pollack to approve and implement it expediently. If the University has reason to suspend an organization, the student body should be made as aware as well, particularly if the issue under investigation involves student safety. It is irresponsible to allow uninformed students to put themselves into potentially dangerous situations by interacting with such suspended organizations.

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Editorial

EDITORIAL | Inform the Public, Release the Report

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The Elections Committee’s refusal to comply with the ruling of the judicial codes counselor in the Varun Devatha ’19 disqualification case is direly unfortunate and demonstrates an embarrassing lack of regard for reason on the part of our student government. Furthermore, it represents an impractical and dangerous seizure of power by a small, unelected council, and the public statement from the members of the committee does little to inspire any confidence in that body’s decision to uphold Devatha’s disqualification for violating election rules regulating promotional materials. We iterate once more how patently absurd it is to believe that a “steal his look” meme so profoundly affected the fairness of the election as to merit a disqualification.Should those on Elections Committee wish to regain the trust which they have so thoroughly dispensed themselves of, they must immediately release all documentation relating to the Devatha case, beginning with the initial challenge to the campaign, all the way through their assessment of the Judicial Codes Counselor opinion and their final report — including their assessment of why they believe they, rather than the JCC, have final authority on the matter. If the committee is so confident in its decision, let it argue it in front of the students which it serves. The committee’s statement references the responsibilities of “the overall community as an informed body politic” — and yet such an invocation rings hollow when the committee refuses to inform the body politic! If the committee is going to risk overturning the democratically expressed will of the people, they should do so openly.

Editorials
Editorial

EDITORIAL | Really, Elections Committee?

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A meme? Really? When The Sun first commented on the disqualification of Varun Devatha ’19, it did so with the belief that the Student Assembly elections committee would not have made that decision and upheld it on appeal, on such a triviality. Clearly, our faith was misplaced. Regardless of whether the offending image, posted in the Facebook group Cornell: Any Meme, Any Study by a supporter of the Devatha campaign, qualifies as “promotional materials” as defined in the elections rules, the suggestion that the meme in any way “comprised the fairness of the election and constituted a material advantage” for Devatha boggles the mind.

Columns
Editorial

EDITORIAL | Why the Wait on Student Assembly Election Results?

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It has been 11 days since Student Assembly polls closed. Over the past week and a half, students have left and returned to campus for Spring Break, and the final decision on the disqualification of presidential candidate Varun Devatha ’19 has been made, and yet we are no more informed about the results than we were in March. Late on March 28, the evening after the polls closed, Devatha was disqualified from the election for using a Cornell University logo in campaign materials in violation of election rules. He petitioned the elections committee to reconsider his disqualification, which the committee declined to do, leaving Devatha with one final option: an appeal to the judicial codes counselor, Kendall Karr grad. Karr may have the power to reinstate disqualified candidates if she finds that the committee was biased in their enforcement of election rules.

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Editorial

EDITORIAL | It’s Time to Reform Student Assembly Elections

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Forty-eight hours after polls closed in this year’s Student Assembly elections, the student body is no closer to knowing just who will represent them for the next twelve months. And now, The Sun has learned that results may not be public until as late as after Spring Break. The reason for this extended protraction is a challenge to the campaign of presidential candidate Varun Devatha ’19. Devatha was disqualified from the election late Wednesday for using a Cornell University logo in campaign materials, a violation of Article I, Section B, Rule 5 of the Student Assembly Election Rules, but has since appealed his disqualification. The letter of the rules is clear: the use of the logo is prohibited.

Editorials
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EDITORIAL | Dale Barbaria ’19 for S.A. President

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Beginning Monday at noon, undergraduates will have the opportunity to vote for their Student Assembly representatives for the 2018-2019 school year. Those elected will be responsible not just for representing student voices to the administration, but for overseeing the various organizations that receive byline funding. They will also face the daunting task of restoring trust in a body that has over the past year made a habit of controversial decisions and ill-timed statements that often overshadow the good work they do. In the race for president, The Sun is proud to endorse Dale Barbaria ’19, who currently serves on the assembly as a College of Engineering representative. We believe he has the greatest appreciation for the responsibilities and limits of the Student Assembly, and his experience as a college representative, parliamentarian, vice president for internal operations, and member of the University Assembly Codes and Judicial Committee leave him best prepared to face the challenges of the coming year.

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Editorial

EDITORIAL | It’s Time for Stricter Gun Control

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Last week, Cornell narrowly escaped becoming the latest entry in a list on which no school wants to appear. After a timely tip from Walmart, Ithaca police and the FBI were able to seize weapons, ammunition, and explosive materials from a former student’s Collegetown apartment, according to court documents unsealed Friday. Cornell is lucky, but that a very flawed system worked this one time is not a consolation, nor should it be used as evidence that America’s gun problem is anything less than incredibly dire. It is not right for a 20-year-old to be able to obtain an assault rifle, significant amounts of ammunition, tactical gear and bomb-making materials — all of which amount to what IPD called a “specific recipe for large scale destruction.” It is not right that the only thing illegal about Reynolds’ possession of that rifle was that he obtained it through a so-called “straw purchase,” wherein he paid another man to buy it for him. We must consider whether anyone, regardless of method of purchase, should be able to hoard such weapons.

Editorials
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EDITORIAL | Cornell Can and Should Do More to Support Protesting Students

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Our generation has never known a world without the threat of school shootings. We were practicing active shooter situations before we knew how to do long division — our teachers may have used phrases like “Code Red” or “shelter-in-place,” but we know what they really meant. In middle school, we joked about trench coats and heavy metal and “Bodies” by Drowning Pool because when we’re afraid of things, we try to cope by finding some humor in them. In high school, we watched Congress vote down even the most incremental increases in gun regulation as parents from Newtown, Connecticut, stood silently in the gallery and our president cried tears of anger and frustration. For two decades our leaders have failed us.