The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/author/leditor/)
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.
Ultimately, Cornell’s rush to suspend nonviolent protesters and its sluggish approach to sexual harassment and assault are simply two sides of the same coin. Both betray the administration’s disinterest in the welfare of its students, demonstrating that disciplinary procedure not only fails to achieve justice or provide safety for the campus community, but that it does so by design.
It is not ridiculous to ask the institution that takes my tax dollars to divest from war profiteers. It is not a fundamental misunderstanding to think that Cornell’s administration should not prioritize the speech of weapons manufacturers and the KKK over that of their own students.
In ignoring antisemitic slurs hurled at Jews protesting on behalf of Palestinian lives, while issuing punishments that bar Jewish students from participating in their chosen Jewish prayer communities, Cornell is inappropriately weighing in on Jewish debates about Jewish values and practice.
My comments, in response to a question from a participant in the meeting about the KKK, were made in the context of my being challenged on why Cornell is allowing some hurtful speech to take place and to illustrate Cornell’s deep commitment to free expression. In retrospect, it was a terrible analogy that was posed, and a false equivalency, and I should have said as much in response. To be clear, the KKK is abhorrent by any standard, and Cornell University would never invite a representative of the KKK to campus. Any speaker invited by a faculty member or student organization is reviewed by the University Events Team and is only allowed to come to campus if the safety of all in our community can be assured.
The only logical conclusion is that the University has a responsibility to take a firm stance against Joel Malina’s welcomeness to offering platforms to hate groups to speak on campus in which all identities and orientations of Cornell’s student body and faculty will be threatened.
In his comments at Hillel, Joel Malina appears entirely confused about the scope and meaning of academic freedom. In his focusing on the case of pro-Palestinian activists, Malina suggests that the administration’s expressive activity policy is not content-neutral but is motivated by pro-Israel parents and donors.
I thank the members of Cornell’s faculty who reached out to me to express understandable concern.
As the Cornell University administration continues to threaten Black graduate student Momodou Taal with de-enrollment and deportation we, as organizations representing Black students, want to reiterate that Black students do not feel safe at Cornell.
After more than 20 years in the classroom, from graduate school through my time at Cornell, I have learned that if students feel that their teachers are scrutinizing what they say, the result is silence. If students feel trusted to explore ideas, the result is education. And when professors — as we surely will after this morning’s Sun story — teach from a place of fear rather than trust, the result is generalized apathy at best, widespread paranoia at worst.