The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/category/opinion/lettersto/)
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.
oin us in taking students seriously when they ask the University to invest in education, not in war; when they advocate for a global vision built on solidarity and care.
Kassam articulates a hopeful vision for the way forward.
She goes too far when she
claims that her crude advocacy of mass violence is connected in any plausible way to “free and open inquiry.”
Kotlikoff fails to acknowledge his role in censoring dissent, and by claiming that Cornell does not punish students for expressing themselves, he disregards experiences like mine.
Editor’s Note: This column responds to Seth Berman’s Oct. 29 column titled Your Vote Won’t Matter, But You Still need to use it. I write in response to a recent Sun column that claims the votes of Cornell students “won’t matter” because New York is not a presidential swing state. Although the column ultimately encourages students to vote in spite of this supposed irrelevance, it is irresponsible and ill-informed to claim that our votes at Cornell don’t matter. Despite New York’s solid-blue status on the presidential level — not to mention Ithaca’s political leanings — our congressional district (NY-19) is one of the most competitive in the country.
To those who now possess my green gems, I only have the following to offer.
Flip over your ballot and vote “yes” to Proposition One.
I’m annoyed when a columnist claims that rallying for Lebanon must be in support of Hezbollah or because of “thinly disguised antisemitism and hate for Israel.”
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.