The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/advocacy/page/2/)
“Differences, specifically impairments, only become disabilities when faced with a society [not] appropriately configured to their specific situations,” Gillis said, noting that Cornell’s natural and built environment can often pose unique challenges to those who are physically impaired.
A few weeks ago, a friend and I were approached on a street in D.C. by a young man whose opening line was “Excuse me, did you know that women are forced to have sex for water?”
I presume he got what he was looking for because I stopped, shocked. “What?” I asked, not sure I had heard correctly. He started to talk to me about exploited women in camps somewhere who were starved and abused, until he finally made it clear that he was discussing the Syrian refugee crisis and was about to ask me for money. He was from an organization that “did work on the ground in Syria,” although the type of work and its effectiveness were both unclear. He told us more tragic tales of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean and dying as they tried to escape war.
In 1968, Cornell students created the Student Homophile League, making Cornell the second university in the country to have a gay student organization. In the past 40 years, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender activism at Cornell has continued to evolve and support the LGBT community.
An exhibit in Olin Library titled “Queer Cornell: LGBT student activism, 1968-2008” opened on April 11. It displays quarter cards, flyers and pictures chronicling LGBT activism on campus since the SHL was created in 1968.