The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/president-kotlikoff/)
Kotlikoff owes Cheyfitz an apology. But he owes the University community something more. He owes us an affirmative, public commitment that going forward University leadership will not respond to inquiries about individual faculty, students or staff with anything beyond a statement of Cornell’s commitment to academic freedom and free inquiry.
Interim President Michael Kotlikoff and Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi fielded questions at Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting on the housing process, Greek Life, protected speech and co-op funding.
As the Cornell University administration continues to threaten Black graduate student Momodou Taal with de-enrollment and deportation we, as organizations representing Black students, want to reiterate that Black students do not feel safe at Cornell.
To some extent, the conversation, however tedious, is the point: the fact that we’re discussing the process or severity, rather than the policy itself — or god forbid the genocidal horrors Taal and others were protesting — takes up air and emboldens Kotlikoff.
We need more graduates like Momodou Taal. Cornell prides itself on developing scholars who go forth and create innovative processes and radical new approaches to age-old problems. No idea is more innovative or radical in our own era of endless war than nonviolence.
On the first day of the fall semester, activists smashed Day Hall’s front door glass and spray-painted “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” along the entrance.