The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/cupd/)
The Student Assembly passed a resolution calling for Cornell Police disarmament during its last meeting of the semester on Thursday.
In just a little more than 24 hours, four Student Assembly members — all of whom voted “no” on the contentious disarmament resolution — have been either removed from committees or the assembly as a whole.
The Student Assembly held a town hall meeting for students to voice their thoughts on campus police disarmament to their S.A. representatives.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article included a signatory who had not signed this letter. That signatory has since been removed. To the Editor:
Three weeks ago, we, fourteen members of the Student Assembly, decided to vote no on Resolution 11 – Calling For the Disarmament of the Cornell University Police Department. We did so for a variety of reasons. Some of us believed the resolution did not properly consider the consequences of disarmament to campus safety.
Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting focused on code of conduct resolutions, as a revote on a resolution to disarm CUPD never materialized.
The petitions are for all but one of the members who voted “no” on a resolution to urge the University to disarm the Cornell University Police Department, and were filed mostly by S.A. members who voted in favor of the resolution.
The South Asian Cornell community should consider what stance it is taking by withholding support for Resolution 11 and campus wide abolitionist reform as led by the Cornell Abolitionist Reform Society and BIPOC leadership.
While the protest occurred at the CUPD headquarters, the other target of organizers was clear: Recalling the 15 Student Assembly voting members who voted against the resolution.
Interruptions, hostility and heightened tensions set the tone for Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting — which ultimately saw a resolution to disarm the Cornell University Police Department fail by razor-thin margins.
Student Assembly members kicked off their latest meeting with calls for the University to disarm the Cornell University Police Department — the assembly’s latest move in a semesters-long push for police reform.