Columns
EINHORN | How Cornellians Can Rise to the Challenge of Our Time
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Today, I’m reaching out as part of the Cornell community, which is of deep importance to me and my family. I attended Cornell, as did my parents and two of my children.
The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/free-speech/)
Today, I’m reaching out as part of the Cornell community, which is of deep importance to me and my family. I attended Cornell, as did my parents and two of my children.
While condemning Prof. Russell Rickford’s Oct. 15 speech, President Pollack doubled down on her commitment to the 2023-24 school year’s academic theme of free speech in her remarks to the Faculty Senate on Nov. 8.
Conservative thinker and Daily Wire host Michael Knowles spoke at a Cornell event without interruption as students organized a vigil for transgender lives outside the auditorium.
Just over a week later, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority condemned Hamas’ actions, stating that they do not represent the Palestinian people. The same day, on Sunday, Oct. 16, Cornell University Prof. Russel Rickford, history, called Hamas’ actions “exhilarating” and “energizing.” Instead of condemning acts of terrorism, Professor Rickford celebrated Hamas’s actions as they “changed the balance of power” in Israel. Professor Rickford’s words stand in stark contrast to the values of Cornell University’s ideal of “free and open inquiry and expression.” We cannot stand idly by as students are traumatized by hateful speech from a professor, as this creates a culture of fear of presenting alternative perspectives, lest their academic standing suffer.
As the Middle East goes up in armed conflict, people around the world turn to us to help understand the rhyme and reason for war. But should we be held accountable for our language in war?
Approaching your own learning experience with a competitive, affective mindset is not a productive way to go about things.
In American life, it seems that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: intellectualism and rising anti-intellectualism, eight years of Barack Obama and the election of Donald Trump, large advances in civil rights and the retraction of those rights (e.g., Dobbs v. Jackson). But no neat system of binaries would stand without eventual collapse when faced with a topic like free speech. Society shifts with the demarcations of history and our current reality is the result of many interconnected political and sociocultural factors.
People coming from nearly all positions of the political spectrum can seem to become exercised over free speech issues. Within the past year, the following types of incidents have thus occurred: the heckling of conservative speakers, debates over trigger warnings, debates over course content (and the expanding canon), student discomfort with specific topics, self-censorship, cancel culture and what some decry as a lack of viewpoint diversity on campuses. Considering that any situation that involves free speech is highly specific, each incident has a unique context and is a unique combination of the phenomena listed above.
The University’s highly anticipated free speech academic theme prompted a moderated discussion on the role of the First Amendment in college.
President Martha Pollack underscored this academic year’s theme, which centers on freedom of expression, in an email to Cornellians on Thursday, Aug. 24.
The start of a new school year brings free expression back to the forefront of campus life. President Pollack joins 12 other university presidents in launching Campus Call for Free Expression.