The event at the Statler was a job fair for ILRies in human resources. For those unfamiliar with Cornell University, the Statler is the home of the hotel school, and ILR stands for Industrial and Labor Relations,* another of Cornell’s colleges. The event, like so many campus events, evoked the outrage of the unduly passionate, who decided it was their duty to disrupt it and prevent it from happening.
Despite whatever one thinks of the intelligence of students at an Ivy League university, the students involved fell short of cognizance when a question was posed to Michael Kotlikoff, interim president and former provost of Cornell University.
“Why are you punishing students for free speech?”
This is the question a Cornell student asked me last Saturday, as I crossed campus on my way to an event during Cornell Family Weekend.
Recognizing that this might be a question other students have, Kotlikoff responded in writing in the Cornell Daily Sun, the campus newspaper.
Unfortunately, on Sept. 18, a number of members of our community chose to disregard those policies, expressing their views in a way that fell far outside the standards of Cornell. Masked students forcefully and violently entered and disrupted an ILR Career Fair at the Statler Hotel, where representatives of Boeing and other companies were discussing career opportunities in human resources. Pushing past two lines of police and making so much noise that the event could not continue, members of our community exercised the heckler’s veto. Their actions disrupted the activities of the university, prevented other students from pursuing their goals, and violated both our Interim Expressive Activity Policy and our Student Code of Conduct. Consistent with our policies, Cornell students who were identified as having participated in this disruption have been referred for conduct violations according to the procedures and the protections outlined in the Student Code of Conduct. Where appropriate, criminal charges have also been filed.
There have been and there will continue to be those who are incapable of distinguishing speech, the expression of ideas and views, from conduct. There tends to be two rationalizations for this confusion. The first is that whatever the cause pursued, it’s “really, really important” and therefore excuses it from the constraints of the speech/conduct distinction. This is the dumber of the two rationalization, so it naturally reared its head at Cornell.
When I quickly tried to point out this distinction to my questioner, she responded that “Boeing kills babies.” That is not a free speech argument, but rather one that asserts a moral justification for violating the rights of others.
The second rationalization is that free speech is of no use if no one hears it or no one pays attention to it. The right to express oneself in the privacy of one’s dorm room is worthless. The right to do so marching around the quad is better, but still ineffective. Unless it’s in the same room as the malfeasant, accompanied by banging pans and grabbing the people who need to hear it by the throat and making clear to them, even if a little spittle is involved, that they are evil and wrong.
Coming back to the question the student asked, no one has been referred for their speech, and free expression remains fully protected at Cornell. But we must understand the difference between protected speech and speech or actions that are designed to suppress the speech and rights of others. Recent Sun letters similarly appear to confuse this issue. Shouting or writing “f*ck you Boeing” is free speech and fully protected; preventing Boeing from discussing jobs with students is not. Calling someone a “kapo” is offensive, but protected speech; breaking through a police line is not.
The common retort to Kotlikoff’s very clear explanation is that while there might have been ancillary conduct related to the exercise of free speech, it was not violent. Notably, “violence” in this usage refers solely to physical harm to a person, not damage to property or disruption. The contention is that as long as it wasn’t violent, the conduct magically becomes irrelevant as the speech becomes dominant. Kotlikoff isn’t buying.
No student at Cornell has been punished for expressing their beliefs. Neither will any student be permitted, whatever their feelings of moral righteousness, to forcibly deny others the rights that are central to our mission at Cornell: the rights to freely speak, converse and learn, with whomever and about whatever they choose.
When the exercise of speech, regardless of right or wrong, good or evil, crosses the line into conduct, the speakers are subject to punishment, not for their speech but for their actions. As Kotlikoff makes clear, the line in the sand has been drawn at Cornell. If it’s crossed, there will be consequences.
*Full disclosure, I received my bachelor of science degree from Cornell ILR.
How did somebody so clearheaded get to be Interim President?
Can we send him to the White House?
I still haven’t gotten over Dale Corson being replaced by Frank HT Rhodes.
“Why are you punishing students for free speech?”
In a different ecosystem this person puts pride flags on bunker busters.