The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/author/opinion/page/2/)
This model, in which accommodations are granted to those who pass through an optional review process in which they must name desired accommodations, makes Cornell a place where students are often forced to create their own accessibility, rather than it being a universal principle on campus.
It’s been almost three years since I’ve had a boyfriend, and I’ve barely dated since coming to college. Do I land in one of the aforementioned categories that make me undateable? Besides the “sex addict” category, of course.
I was never so aware of my womanhood (should we call it femininity?) until I came to Cornell. My guy friends remind me that I am a woman when they offer to walk me back home in the dark. This reminder is sort of a friendly one (although the idea that I need protection is not entirely comforting to me — that this protection is available to me, should I want it, is nice). My self-proclaimed feminist friends remind me of my womanhood, too, but they do so largely in a self-victimizing way with which I’m much less comfortable.
This pattern of scheduling during Jewish religious events is at best a troubling oversight and at worst a deliberate attempt to silence dissenting voices. Jewish students should not have to choose between practicing their religion and defending the existence of their historic homeland.
On Saturday, Feb. 11, Cornell students rallied in Washington, D.C. with politicians, community leaders and students from other universities to reiterate the demands of the Uyghur Policy Act and Uyghur Human Rights Protection Act in response to the genocide in China.
Their stand reflects an important statement of solidarity amongst those who value human rights. The rally had support from The Hong Kong Student Association, Cornell Chinese in Ithaca, Free Tibet, Free Uyghur Now, Athenai Institute, Uyghur Human Rights Association, the Uyghur American Association and others.
I spoke with Suha Khan ’24, a Cornell Interfaith Council leader who drummed up support for the rally. Zoë MeiLing Johnson-Berman ’24, who fostered solidarity amongst organizations through social media networking, also joined us for the conversation. This interview is lightly edited for clarity.
My interest in the law involves the intersection of labor and environmental law focusing on defending the rights of workers exploited by the agricultural system of America. This issue disproportionately impacts undocumented immigrants who don’t have the legal right to unionize given their lack of citizenship. And yet, seventy-three percent of all agricultural workers in the United States belong to immigrant backgrounds, while an estimated three percent of all workers in the U.S. belong to unions in agriculture. In addition to this overwhelmingly large population of agricultural workers that belong to immigrant backgrounds, twenty-eight percent of this workforce is women. This topic of discussion is not directly related to what I will be discussing today, but I figured offering context on my interest in the law might explain my inclination to enroll in a related course at CLS.
When it comes to romance and sexual relations, I seek novelty. I seek the nervous excitement of a budding romance or an unfamiliar fuck. But I also seek the comfort, reliability, unconditional affection and deep connection fostered within a longer-term romance or fuckbuddyship. My “exclusive” high school relationship supplied me with the latter, but at the expense of that novelty which I now know is equally important to my overall romantic and sexual satisfaction. Only in college did I come to terms with my need for both at once, and with the possibility of ethically having both at once via polyamory.
The divestment campaign began many semesters ago but notably gained momentum starting in the fall of 2019. CJC members reached out to faculty and students from other clubs, gaining support from a wide collection of allies ranging from Mothers Out Front, to Cornell University Sustainable Design, to the Vegan Club. CJC and other clubs held public protests nearly every week during the spring of 2020 until the campus shut down due to COVID-19. The most notable of these was a mock wedding between Cornell and the fossil fuel industry — two puppets modeled after the clocktower and a Monopoly Man-esque fossil fuel executive were paraded around Ho Plaza by students in orange beanies and oil-themed masks.
For too long, I’ve thought of men as robots who gravitate to a massive butt or perfectly-adjusted boobs. It baffled me that I looked my best, put on the charm and still got left high and dry. Surely, in the half-hour (!) that we spoke prior to the inevitable rejection, a hair must’ve fallen out of place, or I said something incredibly unattractive. That night, after shedding a few crocodile tears, I began to think about everything that isn’t perfect about me.
So much flooded my mind. Maybe I was too forward, I thought. Maybe I should’ve acted less interested, I wondered.
But oftentimes, there’s something that gets omitted from the Cornell experience, something that’s more important than all the rest. It’s the people — from the friends you meet during your first week to the longtime Ithaca residents you meet on campus and around town who have seen generations of Cornellians come and go. The people are what make the Cornell experience what it is.
Why do I bring this up? Because sometimes the people around you will make you question this simple truth. This has been especially true in these last few years, where the pandemic has called into question many of the social customs we had all previously taken for granted.