Cornell Review XXXIII #6

The Cornell Review "We Do Not Apologize."

An Independent Publication Vol. xxxiii, no. vi Pg. 3

Christopher Nowacki ‘17 exposes misguided composting and recycling policies on college campuses.

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The Conservative Voice on Campus March 2, 2015

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Miranda Hawkins ‘18 criticizes Columbia University’s new, poetic sexual assault policy.

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Roberto Matos ‘15 reviews a panel discussion on Islam in Europe and multiculturalism.

Day Hall Takeover a Bust ‘No Flex Zone’ little more than a bullying pulpit

Laura Gundersen/The Cornell Review

Shay Collins Campus News Editor

MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Curses, Jokes in MLK Speech Laura Gundersen & Casey Breznick Managing Editor & Editor-in-Chief

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hat a shame and an embarrassment for Cornell it was to feature MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry as the speaker at the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemorative Lecture on Feb. 23.

The event, titled “We Can’t Breathe: The Continuing Consequences of Inequality,” was ostensibly meant to serve as a thought-provoking reflection on contemporary race relations and the role the teachings of Dr. King should play today in light of recent elevation of racial tensions due to the cases involving Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice.

“We think of King as the one great voice like Beyonce.” - Melissa Harris-Perry Instead, Harris-Perry delivered an hour-long comedy routine lightly mixed in, here and there, with some serious thought.

Though she did reference Dr. King on numerous occasions, Harris-Perry clearly established from the very beginning that this event was really just about Harris-Perry, and not Dr. King, one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. After a humbling introduction delivered by Dean of Students Kent Hubbell, which referenced Dr. King’s 1960 speech at Cornell and also honored Cornellians slain in the Civil Rights Movement, Harris-Perry started off by taking a “selfie” with the audience behind her.

The event took place in Sage Chapel, with an audience of about 250 packed into the pews. Despite the sanctity of the setting, Harris-Perry could not resist herself in peppering curse words throughout her speech, some of which were obviously planned and not spur of the moment. At one point, she referred to her vision of democracy--that “democracy is for losers”-as “hot shit” and later exclaimed she hoped Trayvon Martin “whooped the shit out of George Zimmerman.”

What would Dr. King, a pacifist, think of those who champion violence in his commemoration?

It actually does not matter what he would think, argued Harris-Perry, because there is now way of knowing. True, but then the MSNBC spin-doctor went on to claim Dr. King is a “social construction” anyways, so what the actual Dr. King said and did is of little relevance and consequence to the modern-day conception of Dr. King.

See ‘We Can’t Breathe’ on page 11

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livestream of student protestors occupying, arguing, and debating with Cornell administrators during the Day Hall takeover on Feb. 9 met a wide range of criticism, including that on online forums such as “Overheard at Cornell.”

Student commenters on a post of the livestream objected to what they perceived as

protestors’ rude interactions with University President David Skorton.

Facebook user Taha Ahmad ’15 commented, “It’s one thing to dislike having to pay an additional fee, but it’s another to ask questions you don’t even want answers for, cut off the answers at every turn, and make demands you don’t seem to fully understand.”

Several protestors in Skorton’s office did bring up

concerns about the nature of the protests, citing their fear that the intensity would alienate potential supporters. Throughout the duration of the occupation of Day Hall, students justified the use of confrontational tactics and language, including swearing at or in the vicinity of administrators.

Immediately preceding President Skorton’s entrance, Daniel Marshall ‘15 stated, “He See Students Divided on page 2

FBI MOST CORNELL MOST WANTED TERRORISTS WANTED PERFORMERS Act of Terrorism - Domestic Terrorism; Act of Artistry Domestic Poetry; Unlawful Flight to Avoid Confinment - Murder Unseemly Lyrics to Avoid Mainstream - Hip Hop

JOANNE DEBORAH CHESIMARD

RAPPER COMMON

Rapper Common Praises Cop-Killers in Lyrics Andres Sellitto Staff writer

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apper and poet Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. is performing at Bailey Hall on March 2. You might not know who Lynn is right away, but I’m sure his stage name, Common, will sound a bit more familiar to you.

Now, you might think that by the condescending start to this article, I will proceed to bash him and criticize the reasons for his upcoming performance. Surprisingly, you will find that I have no problems with him coming to Cornell and performing his halfrap, half-political activism act.

Common is often referred to as a “conscious” and “socially-minded” rapper because he blends political and social commentary into his lyrics. (In any

other genre of music, he would just be referred to as a “musician” or a “lyricist.”)

In fact, the main reason why I’m glad Common is coming to campus is the lack of backlash surrounding the event,, which is due to two main rea-

than one or two students buying tickets.

The second reason is that conservatives—and non-conservatives, for that matter— have not and will not act against his right to come to our campus and say whatever he wants to

“We decided to bring Common because we believe his experiences and story will interest students and Ithacans alike.” - Michael Luzmore ‘17, Cornell University Programming Board Executive Chair sons. First, Common is not too big a deal as a performer. I haven’t heard a single person say, “Wow, those Common tickets really flew away.” At the Cornell University Programming Board (CUPB) tables in Willard Straight Hall, you would be hard-pressed to find more

say, be it violent, controversial, offensive, or even hate speech.

This might seem like a much removed reason to a liberal-filled campus that does not see any problem with taking part in the concert of someone who has on numerous occasion See Free Speech on page 5

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U-California Students Vote to Divest from United States Liberal logic hits all-time-high at UC -- Is Cornell next?

Jake Zhu National News Editor

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ollege students, relentlessly serving as the bellwether for liberal causes, often produce emotionally-charged collective decisions that contravene the intellectualism and rationality that their prospective bachelor’s degrees would otherwise indicate.

Recently, the University of California Student Association passed a resolution that demanded the state university system to divest from the United States government. The reasons that the Student Association cites for its divestment include drone strikes, illegal immigration policy, and the U.S. prison system.

Although rational individuals are able to oppose all of those policies and institutions without resorting to radical means, the Student Association’s official divestment document, “A Resolution to Divest From Companies Engaged in Violence Against Palestinians,” states that the only way to counteract the supposed government sponsorship of human rights violation is to “end our investment in and implicit support for such governments through divestment.”

Their reasoning—and I use the term loosely— is that if the University of California (UC) system refrains from investing in the United States, then the federal government cannot allocate so much funding to companies that have ties to Israel’s military. Consequently, as these campus activists

engender prejudices against Christians, Jews, and homosexuals?

“I think that while the UC system has the liberty to invest its money as it sees fit, I do not believe it is morally righteous to divest from the USA and Israel because human rights violations occur on both sides,” asserted Angel Camacho ’18. “In fact, ‘Palestine’ violates human rights more than Israel does.”

Unfortunately, the very same nonsensical left wing causes that haunt the UC system also plague Cornell.

Last April, the anti-Israel Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement hit Cornell, with a resolution put forth to the Student Assembly demanding the University divest from its share holdings in Israeli corporations or corporations that do significant business with Israel.

In an act that reeked of anti-Semitism, the Students for Justice in Palestine proposed the vote in a time at which many Jews were leaving campus for their Passover holiday, thereby disenfranchising the Cornell Jewish community.

Thankfully, unlike in the UC schools, Cornell’s student government possessed enough sensibility to reject the proposition by voting to not bring it up for discussion. Nevertheless, with the numerous “social justice warrior” activist groups on campus, rational students and faculty must prepare themselves for the next onset of misguided campus activism that discriminate against certain groups.

“I think that while the UC system has the liberty to invest its money as it sees fit, I do not believe it is morally righteous to divest from the USA and Israel because human rights violations occur on both sides.” - Angel Camacho ‘18 conclude, this “embargo” will force Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian due to a lack of financial resources.

Regardless of whether one is pro- or anti-Israel, it is not difficult to see that divestment is a ludicrous idea that has troublesome implications and will result in significant economic damages.

First of all, the pro-Palestinian crafters of the resolution clearly fail to recognize the irony in demanding that their publicly-funded school divest from the government. If the UC system actually implemented this ridiculous resolution, its schools would either cease to exist or have to increase their tuition and fees to the insanely high costs of private universities. Interestingly enough, one clause of the resolution claims that the United States has violated the “universal right to education.” However, how can students from low-income backgrounds afford this “right-to-education” if the entire UC system becomes underfunded and can no longer provide them with adequate financial assistance?

In this day and age, with the costs of attending college already skyrocketing, schools cannot afford to embrace less profitable investments just to appease the moral standards of the radical left-wingers. When universities rely on these investments to fund essential infrastructure and other various accommodations to advance the students’ education, it is unjust to force the students to sacrifice their intellectual pursuits in the name of a misguided cause.

Another irony stems from the fact that although the resolution calls for the school system to divest from any government or company that facilitates discrimination, it excludes most countries in the Middle East as well as the Palestinian authority from its target list. If the creators of the resolution were truly pro-human rights rather than simply anti-Israel, why would they not also call for sanctions on Middle Eastern countries and factions, which regularly

If universities based their investment decisions off the opinions and perspectives of the most radical students and faculty members, there would be deleterious consequences. Fortunately, even if implausible resolutions pass in student governments, college financial administrators are reasonable enough to reject the fallacious rhetoric and act in favor of the interests of their students.

Nonetheless, college students must be wary of left wing groups that pride themselves on acting as the vocal protectors of the “oppressed minorities” on college campuses. In their usual crusade to paint white, Christian males as the main adversaries in American society, they too often claim as their victim a particular minority group—the Jews. Thus, it is the moral obligation of all compassionate, judicious college students to adopt the same activist vitality as that of their left-wing counterparts, but employ it in a more levelheaded manner to speak out against the numerous Anti-Semitic motions disguised as human rights concerns.

Jake Zhu is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jjz43@cornell.edu.

UN-BEAR-ABLE: “It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.” - Ronald Reagan

Screenshot from #FighttheFee Livestream

Students Divided over Fight the Fee Protest Tactics, Aims From front page [Skorton] is going to be like, ‘we’re disrespecting him.’ He’s going to be like, ‘you’re in this space, you’re stopping people from doing their jobs.’”

Marshall and other students argued that Skorton’s aggrievement was simply a tactic to distract students from the issue at hand. Later, student protestors also discussed respectability politics, or the idea that the protesting group should water-down and police their attitudes to be palatable to the student population as a whole.

Many students, however, did focus on the protestors’ tone and tactics. Some worried that negative interactions with administrators would hurt the chances of a compromise on or repeal of the fee.

In a comment to The Cornell Review, Joey Vinegrad ’15 stated he thought that although the Day Hall occupation was “the right way to voice our concerns and get the administration’s attention” he felt that some interactions “reflected poorly on the movement and drove away some student support.”

“I understand this is a serious issue that demands more transparency from the administration and more inclusion of the student voice, and I think moving forward we will have more productive conversations to this end,” Vinegrad went on to say.

Student Assembly Vice President for Internal Operations Matthew Henderson ’16 stated that although he thought the movement lost some momentum following the protest, he also believed that the organizers made a serious attempt to achieve concrete gains.

“I think it is good that the leaders have tried to make it tangible in terms of the group discussing what they want to see and next steps,” Henderson said. “But in general it didn’t seem very productive, and I’ve lost hope that this [the fee] is going to change.”

The occupation of Day Hall definitely represented the workings of a protest machine, drawing largely from the talents of the Save-the-Pass coalition. The organizers of the protest assigned police liaisons, asked administrators to address the group as a whole, and refused to name a concrete group of leaders or organizers.

As stated above, even the usage of confrontation and profanity came in response to the idea of respectability politics.

Whereas the protest did not result in the repeal or reduction of the health fee, video footage of the occupation has garnered national attention and has been shown on Fox News and Fox Business networks. Additionally, despite its polarizing effect on the student body, footage of the protests has drawn out debate on administrative transparency, shared governance, and the health fee.

However, many students still speculate that a large portion of the student population and alumni base must speak out before the administration alters the fee. Thus, the nature and influence of protests, actions, and demonstrations could have a great effect on the success of #FightTheFee. At time of writing, an organizer of Fight The Fee, Michael Ferrer ’17, did not respond for a request for comment.

As of right now, it seems that the movement has calmed a bit, now consisting primarily of teach-ins and student assembly meetings. With a reduction in intensity, it now remains to be seen whether more students and alumni will also raise opposition against the fee.

Shay Collins is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at smc377@cornell.edu.

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University Composting Efforts a Pile of Garbage?

You gonna compost that, bro? Better not, since composting can actually hurt the environment Christopher Nowacki Staff writer

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re you tired of your personal compost pile stinking up your dorm room? Well then Febreze no more, for the compostable waste bin is here!

It’s the greatest innovation to throwing away garbage in the history of mankind, and it’s now ubiquitous on our hallowed college campus. Walk into Trillium, Martha’s, Manndible’s or Terrace (to name a few local faves) and stop by the colorful display of what many once referred to as trash bins. There, you can read a short novel on how to sort your scraps of food and various food and liquid containers into an array of specific trash, compost, and recycling bins in order to give the ozone layer a bit of a break.

Interested in this whole composting craze, I decided to look into why the new form of waste disposal is so trendy in our little Indie town.

According to CU Compost, an on-campus organization devoted to “landfill diversion and promotion of composting practices,” dining hall and café items including any food, soiled paper, and “yellowish utensils” are all compostable. The organization states that all compost collected is “used as a soil amendment on Cornell’s campus and experimental farms.”

What’s not to like about that?

However, what CU Compost fails to tell its campus comrades is just how ineffective one particular “compostable item” really is.

As it turns out, the once-thought to be eco-friendly “compostable” silverware issued in most on-campus eateries might not be mother earth’s greener-alternative godsend.

As it currently stands, for a utensil to be approved as “biodegradable,”

David Ticzon/The Cornell Review

DECISIONS, DECISIONS: Scene here are Trillium’s 6+ bins to place your landfill garbage, recycling, and compostables. On rare occasions, members of eco-clubs try to guide student where to place their waste, but otherwise most students do not seem to care what bins they use.

according to the American Society for Testing and Materials, the product need only be capable of “undergoing biological decomposition in a compost site such that the material is not visually distinguishable and breaks down into carbon dioxide, water, inorganic compounds and biomass at a rate consistent with known compostable materials.”

The controversy with these incredibly liberal parameters lies mostly in the idea that biodegradable plastics need only break down into “inorganic” compounds. What this, of course, implies is that a certain bio-plastic product is not required to break down into standard soil – or “humus,” as many greenies refer to it as.

Now I know my Earth-loving companions retort to this: I’m just an ignoramus who doesn’t recognize the overarching factor retarding compostable

The Cornell Review Founded 1984 -> Incorporated 1986

Casey Breznick Editor-in-Chief

Laura Gundersen Managing Editor

Shay Collins

Campus News Editor

Jake Zhu

National News Editor

Staff Writers Alexis Cashman Miranda Hawkins Christopher Nowacki John Pedro Austen Rattray Abhinav Saikia Andres Sellitto

Staff Photographer David Ticzon

Mark LaPointe President

Benjamin Rutkovsky Treasurer

Faculty Advisor William A. Jacobson

Board of Directors Christopher DeCenzo Joseph E. Gehring Jr. Anthony Santelli Jr.

The Cornell Review is an independent biweekly journal published by students of Cornell University for the benefit of students, faculty, administrators, and alumni of the Cornell community. The Cornell Review is a thoughtful review of campus and national politics from a broad conservative perspective.

The Cornell Review, an independent student organization located at Cornell University, produced and is responsible for the content of this publication. This publication was not reviewed or approved by, nor does it necessarily express or reflect the policies or opinions of, Cornell University or its designated representatives.

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efficacy – landfills and the lack of local infrastructure necessary to facilitate more effective compostable results.

In fact, I understand this quite well.

But if the waste-producing public simply invested in commercial composting services to ensure the proper processing of biodegradable material (and kept items such as bio-plastics out of landfills), would composting organizations like CU Compost truly be “diverting” landfill use?

Perhaps our neighbors over on South Hill can answer that one for us.

In a recent article published in Ithaca College’s Ithacan, the eco-rhetoric surrounding the need and support for mainstreamed composting is put to shame, as according to the article, Ithaca College has officially banned all composting of “disposable forks, spoons and knives that are labeled as compostable.”

This all happens in the wake of a major commercial recall of all bio-plastic utensils from Tompkins County’s own Cayuga Compost (a Trumansburg well-known commercial composter), in which toxic contaminates were found in February of 2014. Upon finding such toxic contaminates, there have been extensive efforts to remove the residual bio-plastics from the company’s composts costing the firm over $12,000.

Toxic and costly, at least we can all have that warm-glow sense of public service the next time we divvy up our garbage and utilize the ever-alluring campus compost bin. And hey, at least we’re keeping reusable, biomass out of the big bad landfills.

The only flaw with this rationale is that until regulatory agencies crack down on the bio-plastics industry, an industry previously championed by the environmentally conscious, landfills will continue to be the answer for much of the current biodegradable matter in mass circulation. Where does the compost culture think Ithaca College’s compostable plastic is going now? The answer is in with the rest of the garbage.

Only time will tell how long composting’s tenure will last at Cornell, but as for this adopted Ithacan, I think I’ll continue to pass on that wasting option. After all, I wouldn’t want a squirrel, bear, or mountain cat to be poisoned by contaminated humus. Then I’d just be some diabolical humanist. And that wouldn’t be fair to our nature-faring brethren.

Christopher Nowacki is a sophomore in the College of Human Ecology.

He can be reached at cmn63@cornell. edu.

Did you know that 45% of the cost of beer is taxes?

Outrageous, right?

If you think so you will be in good company at The Cornell Review.

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IVY WATCH I∙vy∙i∙sm (eye-vee-ism) n. 1. School of leftist thought found on Ivy League campuses and practiced by most professors, administrators, and students (See also: socialism, progressivism, liberalism)

Columbia University Grad Brown University Requirement: Writing Student: ROTC is Poems about Sexual Assault ‘Criminal’ Miranda Hawkins Staff Writer

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hile Cornell students are no strangers to ridiculous graduation requirements, at least ours have never included poetry writing. With the introduction of a new sexual respect education program, however, the same will shortly no longer be true of Columbia University.

On Feb. 11, Columbia University introduced its newest graduation requirement: a sexual education program designed to combat sexual assault on campus. In order to receive their diplomas, Columbia students will now be required to comply with one of four options: watch and discuss short films, submit an anonymous

voluntary training programs, thousands of students were given the opportunity to learn how to prevent sexual violence.

Presumably, such programs could have been expanded in order to create the kind of discussion Columbia is currently looking to promote. Surely a required bystander intervention training session would do more to combat sexual assault than any number of bad poems and cliche-filled essays.

While Columbia might optimistically be expecting that these required exercises will result in thoughtful and creative social commentary, the simple reality is that college students, as a rule, tend to dislike unnecessary graduation requirements. They also tend to minimize the amount of time and effort put into those require-

heavy-handed message, as each character speaks of nothing but the perceived racism he encounters in his daily life, while vehemently proclaiming, “I am not a racist.”

Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Laura Brown stated that the idea behind the choice of novel was to “allow students to explore a wide range of ideas and cultural issues with faculty and students from colleges and schools across the university.”

The summer reading project was Cornell’s attempt to prompt widespread student discussion on a topic most students seem to care about. Was it effective? Not at all. Many students ignored the requirement, failing to either read the book or attend the discussion, with

“The fact is that it’s very easy to pretend to care about a social justice topic, if one knows which opinions the administration is looking to hear.” reflection on one of two TED talks, participate in an hourlong workshop, or create a work of art or a poem that somehow reflects on sexual respect.

The program was drafted with the help of students at Barnard College, the women’s liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia. Barnard students, however, will not be required to participate in the program.

Ironically, the strongest critics of the new sexual education program include some of Barnard’s and Columbia’s most vocal opponents of sexual violence. In an interview with Campus Reform, Barnard student Michela Weihl stated, “[The program] is poorly designed and demonstrates a willful neglect of both empirical evidence and student feedback.”

In fact, Columbia already had a number of sexual education programs in place during the 2013-2014 academic year.

Through orientation programs and

ments. As Weihl put it, “When you offer students a choice… they’re going to choose what’s going to take less time.” This suggests that some poor administrator at Columbia will have to sift through piles and piles of bad rhymes and sexual innuendos, with maybe a few hastily-written essays thrown in by the more dedicated students.

The simple fact is that college administrations have no easy way to ensure their students seriously discuss social advocacy topics. One of Cornell’s latest attempts was its required summer reading for incoming freshmen, and it was predictably ineffective. The assigned book was A Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in the Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous, who delivers a heavy-handed message about diversity and multiculturalism.

At the beginning of the semester, students attended guided discussions on the reading project (or at least they were supposed to). Of course, there wasn’t much to discuss; it was impossible to miss Lakhous’s

no repercussions. One anonymous student admitted, “I didn’t read the book, and I slept through the discussion.”

Even students who did attend their discussions were able to easily coast through by either not saying anything or making a few commonplace statements about diversity. The fact is that it’s very easy to pretend to care about a social justice topic, if one knows which opinions the administration is looking to hear.

No one can deny campus sexual assault is a serious topic, worthy of serious and productive discussion. Columbia’s approach to the issue, however, is ham-handed at best, or more likely completely off-track. No one can honestly expect that writing a poem will in any way help combat sexual assault— no one, that is, except the administrators at Columbia.

Miranda Hawkins is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at meh339@cornell.edu.

John Pedro Staff Writer

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n early February, Brown University student Peter Makhlouf ’16 wrote a disconcerting opinion piece for the Brown Daily Herald branding the military’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program as one composed of “criminals.” The piece, published earlier this month, was titled “ROTC: Return of the Criminals.”

ROTC is a college program for students who want to join the armed forces. Over the course of four years, students take military science classes, participate in physical training, and learn a variety of skills and leadership lessons preparing them to commission as officers upon their college graduation.

Makhlouf’s outrage was directed at the action of Brown’s faculty to endorse a resolution supporting the development of an affiliation with Air Force and Navy ROTC programs. He claims that military efforts to recruit high-achieving students are deliberate attempts to rope such individuals into the industry of “state-sanctioned violence.”

It is alarming to see such sentiments voiced at an institution similar to Cornell, and surely, there are individuals here who share Makhlouf’s views. However, Cornell has a long and storied military tradition, one that is far greater and more historically relevant than protests, building occupations, and self-righteous outrage.

At Cornell there has long been the combination of military service with higher education. The first American to carry the flag into battle in World War I, Edward Isley Tinkham, attended Cornell. Cornell inducted more service members in both world wars than any other school in the nation, with the exception of West Point.

The War Memorial on West Avenue in front of Baker Flagpole is a reminder of and testament to the men of Cornell who lost their lives in the First World War. Barton Hall—named for the first Cornelian to earn a commission, Colonel Frank Barton—was even once used as a hangar for military aircrafts.

Famous Cornell alumni in the profession of arms include Thomas C. Reed, former Secretary of the Air Force and special assistant to President Reagan; John M. Paxton Jr., a 4 star General and current Assistant Commandant of the United States Marine Corps; and two Medal of Honor winners. Today, approximately 49 Cornell students are enrolled in ROTC for one of the three services.

Makhlouf’s incendiary article, including the branding of ROTC courses as “the art of killing and torturing,” does not fit the facts, although it is rooted in an admirable and conscientious defense of a sincerely held belief.

See Brown Student on page 10

For daily coverage and commentary of campus and national news, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @thecornellreview.

It’s the right thing to do.

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Free Speech at C.U. Continued from front page praised notorious cop-killers and FBI-designated domestic terrorists.

Common’s most controversial piece is “A Song for Assata,” an ode written to Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Chesimard, a convicted murderer who brutally assassinated New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster and assaulted Trooper James Harper in a shooting on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1977. Though accounts differ of the shooting, it occurred as the troopers were conducting a routine traffic stop on the vehicle Chesimard and others were riding in.

At the time, Chesimard was the leader of the Black Liberation Army, a terrorist group that carried out bombings, murders, robberies and prison breaks during the 1970s. She was an active preacher of black separatism, a doctrine that basically promotes reverse Apartheid. Though convicted and imprisoned for her murder of a police officer, she escaped from prison in 1979 and has been exiled in Cuba ever since. Bryon has earned for herself the accolades of being on the FBI’s Most Wanted List and having a reward of $2 million for her capture and imprisonment. Cuba, of course, welcomed her with open arms and gave her citizenship in 1984.

All in all, not a lot of peace and love with regard to Ms. Chesimard.

This, nevertheless, did not prevent Common from visiting her in Cuba, and writing in the aforementioned song: “Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.

We’re molded from the same mud, Assata. We share the same blood, Assata, yeah. Your power and pride, so beautiful...

May God bless your Soul.”

In 2011, Common garnered a blip of media attention when he was officially invited to a poetry event at the White House, despite the protestations of the New Jersey State Police and the family of deceased state trooper.

Common’s affection for those who wantonly murder policeman doesn’t end with Chesimard. The “socially-minded” rapper is also quite fond of imprisoned cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. In a poem of his Common writes, “flyers say ‘free Mumia’ on my freezer.”

Despite the controversy surrounding Common, CUPB stands by selecting him.

Michael Luzmore ‘17, CUPB Executive Chair, told The Cornell Review, “CUPB’s position has always been to bring talent to perform at Cornell that will enrich our community and provide a space to explore culturally relevant topics.”

He added, “We decided to bring Common because we believe his experiences and story will interest students and Ithacans alike.”

Perhaps Common is an interesting character. The point I’m making is that you don’t see conservative students on campus up in arms or planning to picket in front of Bailey Hall. We are certainly not about to force guests to back down from delivering commencement speeches or talks because their sentiments or beliefs are contrary to some of ours. This is because, above all, conservatives believe in the right to free speech, and believe speakers should not be shunned from campuses because of their viewpoints.

Though some of Common’s lyrics are detestable, none of them is a call for violence. Students should have the opportunity to purchase tickets to attend the event and make up their minds about Common’s artistry and the content of his lyrics.

In contrast, open-minded liberal students will fight tooth-and-nail to revoke invitations to speakers they don’t like. Want examples? See what Rutgers students did to Condoleezza Rice last year, what Michigan State students did to George Will last semester, and even what UC Berkeley students did to Bill Maher, one of their own, also last semester.

So much for free speech at Berkeley, where the whole college campus free speech movement began.

Not even Cornell Police are opposed to Common’s performance on campus, despite his championing of individuals who have killed policeman in their line of duty.

“No, we have no objections to this or any other group regardless of what they represent; philosophically, religiously, or politically. Protecting everyone’s right to free speech is in fact a cornerstone to our department’s efforts to safeguard our community and those who visit it,” wrote Lt. Philip Mospan, Administrative Lieutenant for Cornell Police, in response to email inquiry regarding Cornell Police’s stance on Common’s lyrical content and performance on campus.

It is plainly clear both Cornell Police and Cornell conservatives subscribe to the wisdom of “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It is not so clear what wisdom liberals and leftists subscribe to.

Andres Sellitto is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at as2747@cornell.edu.

Natural gas is over 40% cleaner than coal

But local “environmentalists” oppose this power plant’s conversion from coal to natural gas WHY?

Image via the Ithaca Journal

Local Eco-Warriors Oppose Cayuga Plant Conversion to Cleaner Natural Gas Benjamin Rutkovsky Treasurer

Y

ou would think environmentalists would cheer on a power plant shifting from burning coal to using cleaner natural gas. In such case, you would be wrong. Welcome to Tompkins County, New York.

Back in 2012, the nearby town of Lansing’s Cayuga Power Plant requested to shut down, but New York’s Public Service Commission (PSC) blocked the request and instead ordered the plant to transition from coal-burning to natural gas. The same year the plant went bankrupt, but it managed to emerge from bankruptcy a

take some time and we’re not talking 5 years — we’re talking about a while.”

Additionally, the power plant is the county’s biggest private taxpayer. If the plant were to shut down, citizens would have to make up for lost tax collections, or would have to contend with reduced public services; it is highly unlikely the progressive communities in Ithaca, Lansing, and nearby cities would contend with reduced public services.

The plant also provides 70 full-time jobs, and its retrofitting would provide 400 part-time jobs.

Weiser says that Cuomo will work towards giving aid to the county if it chooses not to rebuild the plant. But what guarantee is there?

“I’m not saying the world shouldn’t go solar, but it’s going to take some time and we’re not talking 5 years — we’re talking about a while.” - Mike Sigler, Tompkins County Legislator year later. Fast-forward to today, and the Cayuga plant is now facing closure if it does not obtain state approval to transition from coal to natural gas, a retrofitting that is estimated to cost $100 million.

Tompkins County Legislator Mike Sigler, who represents Lansing, was quoted in The Ithaca Voice saying, “It doesn’t look like coal is going to survive in this country, and, frankly, natural gas is the bridge.”

The Cayuga plant is one of the few power plants in New York that still uses coal, the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Natural gas, on the other hand, burns 43% cleaner than coal and 30% cleaner than oil. Knowing this, environmentalists should favor the retrofit, as it would greatly reduce plant emissions that lead to global climate change and acid rain.

Nevertheless, environmentalists oppose the retrofit because they believe it will increase reliance on fossil fuels. They argue investing $100 million in retrofitting the power plant is untenable when alternative and renewable sources of energy can meet the area’s power needs, argues local Cayuga plant opposition leader Irene Weiser. Wesier specifically mentions solar farms as a viable alternative, but there currently is not enough solar energy to meet local energy demands.

The Cayuga plant produces 300 megawatts of electricity, whereas, for example, the current solar array near the Ithaca airport supplies a mere 2 megawatts.

“I’m not saying the world shouldn’t go solar,” said Sigler to The Ithaca Voice, “but it’s going to

Furthermore, this aid money would just be coming from other state taxpayers, unduly burdening those who have nothing to do with the Cayuga plant.

Besides, no one should ever feel comfortable relying on state aid as part of one’s argument.

Self-sufficiency in Tompkins County should be sought after, and aid should be seen as a last resort.

Weiser brings up another point: the $100 million price tag may be burdensome, as the funding would come from Tompkins County. Although this is a substantial cost, the future tax revenue that would result from the retrofitting would outweigh the present expense.

According to the Cayuga plant, if it closes, property taxes in Lansing will increase by 12%, utility bills would increase by $600 per home, county taxes will increase by 1%, and the school will lose $1.25 million in revenue, resulting in 15 teacher lay-offs. This is all in addition to the loss of the 70 full time jobs the power plant provides.

These numbers, of course, are from the Cayuga Plant and might be exaggerated.

Shutting down the Cayuga power plant would be detrimental for Lansing and Tompkins County as a whole. The loss in jobs and tax revenue provided by the plant are too large a price to pay for a shutdown. But since this is a utility, the free market doesn’t have final say. The decision to allow the plant to convert to natural gas, and thus stay open, is up to the PSC. Benjamin Rutkovsky is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He can be reached at bmr88@cornell.edu.

6

DIVIDED WE STAND? Fight the Fee leaders criticize engineering, pre-med programs in attempt to unite students Casey breznick Editor-in-Chief

F

ight the Fee protest leaders are seeking to unite the student body to oppose the $350 student health fee and to drastically alter the University’s system of shared governance.

What they fail to tell you is that they really only care about placing themselves into positions of power, and most students might also be a little more than surprised if they knew about the harsh criticism Fight the Fee leaders Daniel Waid Marshall ‘15, Keanu Stryker ‘17, and Zakiya Wells ‘17 have for students whose majors fall under the Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics (STEM) categories, and for those in the Dyson school.

The outright disdain and snarky comments aimed at students pursuing those majors was bizarre and seemingly antithetical to their objective of uniting the student body behind them, considering probably half of students at Cornell major in those criticized fields.

Fight the Fee leaders plunged into this divisive rhetoric at last Thursday’s Fight the Fee teach-in dubbed “$350 is Everything.” Though open to the public, the 25 or so in attendance were clearly those sympathetic or part of the Fight the Fee protest group.

“Their ultimate motive is not to show unilateral disapproval of the fee, but rather to give themselves approval as activists.”

- Matt Lin ‘16 The hour-long presentation and discussion started off with Marshall outlining the basic grievances and demands of Fight the Fee, and, presumably, the leftist community on campus at large. Some of these demands included the creation of a Student Union, a student-comprised entity with veto power over all administrative policy decisions, and “greater respect” from administrators. “[These] incredibly reasonable demands [are a] radical departure from the world we live in,” said Marshall.

Marshall and Stryker then took turns accosting the University, its administration, and its board of trustees and levying accusations of financial imprudence and corruption, including what they referred to as “administrative bloating.” “[Cornell’s] rising tuition is going to people who explain why tuition is rising,” Marshall claimed. He specifically identified Vice President of University Relations Joel Malina as one such superfluous administrator.

Following this, Marshall spoke at length concerning what Fight the Fee calls the “neoliberal university.” According to a PowerPoint slide accompanying this segment of the presentation, a neoliberal university is “a global corporation focused on the highest return on its investments (including you).” Marshall identified the neoliberal university’s ability to self-regulate, its emphasis on individual responsibility instead of community support, and prioritization of financial relationships---”donors over diversity”---as major problems.

While Marshall dominated the presentation, it was Stryker who launched into the baffling criticism of students whose majors are STEM-related. Stryker started off casually mentioning budget cuts to theater and dance programs, but soon became visually distraught and began to speak at length about the University’s preference for funding non-humanities programs because they are more lucrative and garner the University more acclaim. He specifically identified medical research and the College of Engineering as improper destinations of increased University

Laura Gundersen/The Cornell Review

#FIGHTTHEFEE: Daniel Marshall ‘15, left, and Wyatt Nelson ‘16, right, spoke at Fight the Fee’s teachin on Feb. 19. Marshall accused Cornell of financial mismanagement and putting corporate interests before those of students, whereas Nelson defended the idea of establishing a Student Union on campus. “[These] incredibly reasonable demands [are a] radical departure from the world we live in,” said Marshall.

funding. Stryker then asked those in the audience to raise their hands if they were humanities majors, and, separately, if they were not, but it was unclear what his intentions were.

When asked for comment after hearing these criticisms, computer science major Matt Lin ‘16 said, “Their [Fight the Fee leaders’] ultimate motive is not to show unilateral disapproval of the fee, but rather to give themselves approval as activists.”

Later, Wyatt Nelson ‘16 delivered a well-prepared rebuke of various criticisms that have been levied against the call for the creation of a Student Union on campus, an idea which he helped craft along with Andrew Soluk ‘15, both of the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. As to the point of student involvement in policy-making, Nelson brushed aside claims that students are unable to pass professional judgment upon University policy. He referenced universities in other countries where students have similar levels of power on their campuses, and also argued that students in “one of the best business schools in the world”--here referring to Cornell’s undergraduate business program, the Dyson School--should be able to manage the University. It was unclear if this was a serious thought or just a joke, but either way Nelson, though articulate, proved he vastly underestimates the complexity in running a multi-billion dollar, international organization. His words were invigorating, but ultimately empty. Just because Fight the Fee leaders want students in control at Cornell does not mean an oligarchy of the left-most of leftist students on campus could competently run it.

As Lin points out, it appears Fight the Fee is more interested in positioning themselves into positions of power and sprucing up their activist resumes rather than building a broad-based coalition of students in opposition to the fee. Through their rhetoric and attitudes displayed towards those students whose worldview does not revolve around “struggle,” it is clear Fight the Fee students --who unsurprisingly are the Save the Pass, Cornell Organization for Labor Action, Students for Justice in Palestine, and Telluride House leaders, too--seek to divide students as thoroughly as possible: by socio-economic status, by race, ethnicity, creed, gender, by political ideology, and even by major.

Fight the Fee leaders seek to divide students in an attempt to garner power for themselves. Any time and effort spent supporting them will go unappreciated in the end, and you will surely be left in their dust.

Casey Breznick is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

He can be reached at cb628@cornell.edu.

Cornell Alumni Watch: Wisemen and Fools FOOL

Image via Blurrent

In a recent interview, Bill Nye the “Science Guy” ‘77, Engineering, urged MSNBC’s Joy Reid to say “climate change” rather than “global warming” when it’s cold out. No more global warming jokes when it’s -20 degrees.

WISEMAN

FOOL

Image via Cornell

Image via NBC News

Shake Shack CEO Randy Giumatti ‘97, Hotel, helped founder Danny Meyer transform a Manhattan hot dog shack into a worldwide restaurant phenomenon.

The company’s stock price since IPOing in late January has risen over 110%.

Cho Hyun-ah ‘99, Hotel, forced a Korean Airlines plane to return to the gate and kicked off a flight attendant because he served her nuts in a bag, not on a plate. This “nut rage” incident earned her a one-year prison sentence in South Korea.

Compiled by Casey Breznick

7

Admins, Student Leaders Speak on the Future of Shared Governance at Cornell Interviews conducted by Shay Collins

“The role of the Student Assembly is changeable and I commend many of our representatives for being critical of the true power we exercise. By doing so, we can forge an assembly that makes bolder moves and advocates more powerfully for students.”

“I think it is important to note that the Student Assembly still has made many strides forward for students and directly impacting their lives through the Dean of Students Office. Many of our efforts go unnoticed and are taken for granted but greatly affect the day in and day out of students.”

- Juliana Batista ‘16, Student Assembly Executive Vice President*

“Giving students veto power over certain University policy forces the administration to explain itself and put its cards on the table. More knowledge is always better than less; students would have a better understanding of how the university operates. I do not think that students will simply veto everything that comes their way if the university is forthright in its dealings.” “[I]ncluding students in the decision making process increases the possibility for creative and constructive solutions to otherwise difficult problems. However, the way it stands right now, we have no idea how the university reaches its decisions We pay money to go to Cornell and we are all affected by university policy. It is only fair that we have a more substantial voice at the table.”

- Andrew Soluk ‘15, co-proponent of a Cornell Student Union

“The fact that the SA reports to Cornell’s president is a very important opportunity to effectively communicate and influence Cornell’s administration. Their powers and responsibilities are enhanced in proportion to how effectively and clearly they represent the legitimate concerns of students to the president.”

“Over the past decade, I believe that the SA has been ably led, and my advice to them going forward is to have the strength of their convictions, and continue to dedicate themselves to effectively representing their constituencies in all that they do.”

- Kent Hubbell, Dean of Students

“If you read my proposal, I say that students should have control over the budget and academic matters, and leave logistical things to the University, because I look at this model that they had in the 1970’s, and from 1970-1981, it was working, the University was doing fine.”

“The idea that students are over-burdened also does not make sense to me because on the Student Assembly there are students who devote lots of time to understanding how the university works and trying to change it. If it’s an elected position, the person who has the time to devote will run. That’s how a democracy works in general--the person willing to be a representative will be elected.”

- Wyatt Nelson ‘16, co-proponent of a Cornell Student Union

“A student union would be great, but we’re never going to get vetoing power and stuff like that; it’s always going to have to be a recommendation role.”

“In terms of what we can do going forward to have more of an impact, I think we do have to retain a lot of the intensity and get more people involved. People have been critical of us [the Student Assembly] for not handling these issues well in the past, and I think that’s valid – we haven’t gotten traction on the biggest issues – final exams, TCATs. I’m following the protestors’ lead in seeing what we can do because the existing things that we’ve done through the committee have been more symbolic and have failed.”

- Matthew Henderson ‘16, Student Assembly Vice President for Internal Operations* *The opinions expressed here by Juliana Batista and Matthew Henderson are their own, and are not meant to represent the Student Assembly.

8

Say What? U-Michigan Spends $16,000 on ‘Inclusive Language Campaign’ Laura Gundersen Managing Editor

I

n an attempt to be more “inclusive,” the University of Michigan (UM) has launched a campaign to limit the utterance of certain words on campus.

The university spent $16,000 on efforts to restrict the use of words and phrases such as “crazy,” “gypped,” “ghetto,” “insane,” “I want to die,” “illegal alien,” and “that test raped me.” This cost coincidentally came at the time of two successive years of tuition and fee increases.

While the policy of restricting the use of ordinary words sounds like something a parent would do only for the youngest of children, the project was meant to educate, and not to regulate. Students attending the university were encouraged to fill out reflective surveys and

students on campus by providing education around words that are offensive.”

However, chief editor of The Michigan Review Derek Draplin thinks differently.

Stating that he thought the campaign is “meant for third graders,” he says, “spending money to do this is a waste because ultimately it’s an individual’s choice to both use offensive language and take offens[e] to certain language.”

Draplin goes on to say that nationwide, students “are more concerned with their emotional security than their personal liberties.”

The concept of preventing others from using certain words based on their potential to offend is unreasonable for two reasons. First, the words are usually not meant to offend—when you hear Cornellians saying that their recent

individuals understand that their words can impact someone and to encourage individuals to commit to creating a positive campus community.”

When asked about the possibility of the campaign encroaching on free speech, Fitzgerald said, “we believe this program has just the opposite effect…it will make discourse more constructive by respecting the views and perspectives of others.” Fitzgerald believes “a campus conversation about the impact of words is good for everyone.”

Similar efforts to limit free speech and foster “inclusion” (read political correctness) have been ever increasing in recent years. Increasing “diversity” requirements (the University of Maryland budgeted $15,000 for a diversity and inclusion program in 2012), mandatory programs like Cornell’s Tapestry show, and other at-

“[Students] are more concerned with their emotional security than their personal liberties.” - Derek Draplin, Editor-in-Chief of The Michigan Review attend workshops related to the campaign and events. Students can still see posters and banners across campus with quotes and blurbs related to the movement.

The Inclusive Language Campaign’s page on the university’s website states, “ILC aims to encourage the campus community to consider the impact of their word choices on others. The ILC raises awareness about the power of words, why certain language can be hurtful to others, and how to be more inclusive in how we speak and act as members of the Michigan campus community.”

The project “is a great program,” UM student Kidada Malloy told the Michigan Daily, “because it will improve the day-to-day language of

prelim “raped” them, do you think their real objective is to insult a woman who has been raped? Second, it is out of a speaker’s control which words are offensive. It could be argued, for example, that the word “lucky” is offensive, because that was the name of someone’s dog that just died.

It is, as Draplin noted, a choice to be offended. The hypersensitivity and tiptoeing that we are seeing here only aids in instilling fear of saying anything at all. The artificial silence that results from these types of campus campaigns is a far more serious issue than a few hurt feelings.

UM spokesman Rick Fitzgerald told The College Fix that a goal of the Inclusive Language Campaign is to “address campus climate by helping

tempts to move toward more politically correct and silenced campuses have plagued the nation. Last year, we saw the development of “free speech zones” on multiple campuses.

Students of the University of Hawaii were even stopped from handing out copies of the Constitution outside of such zones.

Since when have our Constitutional rights been qualified, or limited to zones?

It seems that the students who attend these universities are getting gypped of their money, as well as their rights to speak freely.

Re-wording suggestions from the University of Maryland’s inclusive language campaign.

That’s so ghetto.

Tasteless, wack, grimey

That’s so retarded.

Ridiculous, off-base, improper

That’s so gay.

Weird, strange, wrong

That exam just raped me.

Hard, impossible, tough

Laura Gundersen is a sophomore in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at lcg63@cornell.edu.

Interested in Social Justice?

Every social justice warrior needs his/her/preferred-pronoun elevator pitch. We at The Cornell Review have prepared a template for you/preferred-pronoun. Just fill it in as needed and send an email to cornellreview@cornell.edu letting us know what your social justice statement is. We’ll print them in our next issue.

In solidarity with the ______(A)________ movement/cause/revolution, I seek to smash the prevailing ______(B)________ order of systemic and systematic _______(C)_______.

• • • • • •

(A)

Working Class Proletarian People’s Feminist Anti-heteronormative Eco-Warrior

• • • • • •

(B)

Capitalist Racist Cis-heteronormative Patriarchical Mysoginistic Ableist

• • • • • •

(C)

Injustice Oppression Violence Repression Marginalization Privilege

9

Tantrums of the Divided Left:

How the Muslim Question is Polarizing Militant Atheists and Multiculturalists A Review of a recent Cornell panel discussion titled “Muslim Immigration in a Changing Europe” Roberto Matos Staff Writer

The Clarion Call

T

he Divide: The urgent question of Islam and its presence in Western societies has exposed a deep fissure on the political Left in Europe and America.

This ideological divide has now grown into a yawning chasm.

On one side stands the iconoclastic militant atheists who have refused to appease any faith-based claim of favoritism or special treatment in the name of political correctness. Blaspheming without compunction, they represent the living spirit of Voltaire in French Enlightenment thought, which categorically condemned religious identity as necessarily authoritarian and illiberal.

On the other side lies a new strain—that of multiculturalism. This now dominant tendency among the progressives in America and among the social democrats in Europe calls for tolerance for the Other, especially the oppressed Other. Smitten by post-colonial White Guilt, and totally committed to enforcing codes of political correctness, this younger group of culturally sensitive Leftists takes pains so as to avoid offending non-Western peoples and traditions, even if these traditions contravene traditional Enlightenment principles of freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and separation of Church and State. Under this ideological rubric, absolute politeness and sensitivity to the Other are paramount. The most taboo thing one could ever be is a suspected racist or intolerant of the Other.

The Trigger: At no time has this schism between politically incorrect secularists and politically correct multiculturalists been more apparent than in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

This French atheist magazine’s 10 senior staff members - Leftist cartoonists and writers - were slaughtered

by Sunni Wahhabi extremists who sought to “avenge the Prophet” of Islam. Responding to Al Qaeda-in-Yemen’s directive to murder the journalists, the killers brutally and publicly acted out of what they believed to be just retaliation for Charlie’s “blasphemous” and offensive cartoons of their beloved Mohammed.

In the French press, on Twitter and on the opinion pages of the New York Times, liberals, socialists, militant atheists and progressives of every stripe represented their respective factions in a pitched battle over the nature of minority rights, religious blasphemy laws, freedom of the press, and the viability of multiculturalism. The question takes on special urgency now, in the face of ethno-religious minorities whose social assimilability has come under question - even in European Left circles.

The Fear: Creeping Racism?

These energetic, though troubled, discussions were ongoing as recently as Feb. 12 on Cornell’s very campus.

In an event billed as a panel discussion on “Muslim Immigration in a Changing Europe,” Cornell professor Camille Robics, history, criticized the French Left for reflexively standing in solidarity with the Charlie Hebdo.

The panel, which included Amara Lakous, an Italian Muslim writer, and Chiara Formichi, a Cornell specialist in South Asian Studies, expressed the fear that the #JesuisCharlie movement—an expression which rallied millions across the world in solidarity with the victims of Salifist extremism—was merely a cover for anti-Muslim racial chauvinism embraced, strikingly, by both Left and Right. They argued that the ‘I am Charlie’ hashtag has been appropriated by political movements of each character and type, and is now a

dubious marker, suggesting that Islam is a foreign body in the heart of Western civilization. This line is peddled by French Universalists, secularists, anti-clericists and republicans who have been co-opted by the French exclusionism.

The Republicans vs. The Multiculturalists Professor Robics indicted the Universalist, secular model of French republicanism - laicite. She explained that under the ideological rubric of laicite, public affirmation of religious identity, especially that of ethnic minorities, is frowned upon, and sectarian particularism - one’s passionate devotion to one’s creed - is to be confined to the individual’s private sphere. “[The] fantasy of a universalist republic should be abandoned because it never existed in the first place, and because it is fundamentally unworkable” Robics said.

She argued that the French republican model has erroneously sought to homogenize and abstract difference, make cultural particularisms disappear, and explicitly erases religious and cultural particularity. By

Image via The Heyman Center

PANEL POLITICS: Pictured above is panel participant Professor Camille Robics, history. According to the professor, “[The] fantasy of a universalist republic should be abandoned because it never existed in the first place, and because it is fundamentally unworkable.”

doing so, republicanism has displaced the tolerance of Enlightenment pluralism with the chauvinist preference for sameness, which is necessarily exclusive. Insisting on Muslim immigrants to France to suppress their religiosity and embrace secular republicanism is necessarily discriminatory.

The panelists mused over the viability of multiculturalism--the notion that a society can maintain itself with heterogeneous and cultural elements without a cohesive ideological norm or unifying principle except the norm of promoting “diversity.” They concluded that this model--one in which all difference, even culturally shocking and “alien” differences are tolerated--was preferable to a regime in which faux solidarity is demanded through homogenous sameness in the name of “assimilation.” Assimilation’s roots are problematic, they argued, given its origins in the colonial insistence that native, occupied Algerians adhere to the French hierarchical and Eurocentric social model. The French ought to embrace ethnic and racial “coexistence” among distinct cultures, instead of insisting that newcomers reinvent themselves as French citizens.

The Race Question: As for the massacre itself, Robics took an opportunity to critique the French center-left, much of which has been protective of Charlie Hebdo, which other Leftists condemned as “racist” for its caricatures of Muslims, Mohammed and Sunni fundamentalism.

She explained a refrain of French secular “apologists” for Charlie: the magazine could not possibly

be racist, since Charlie was a Leftist magazine which regularly criticized the “Far Right’s racist attacks on Muslims.” Furthermore, Robics said, Charlie’s defenders argued that criticism of Islam is hardly racist, since attacking and deconstructing a system of religious belief is not a racialist pursuit, but occurs in an ideational space.

Liberals in French magazines lamented the specific target of the attackers: “The Charlie writers and cartoonists were staunch anti-racists, they were pro-minority, against the Far Right, its a shame that these young men attacked the very people who were standing up for immigrant and Muslim rights, these men didn’t target the right-wing papers who actually were racist,” said one left commentator.

Robics argued that, though Islam is indeed a religion and not a race, demeaning Islam can still be construed as racist, since European history has shown that the line between a group’s racial and religious identity is often very blurry. Ridiculing Muslims is racialized in the same sense that ridiculing Jews--as a group-- is racialized. For European Jews as well as Algerian migrants to France, the nexus between race and religion makes it impossible to separate racial from religious offense in the French socio-political context.

The Egalitarian Offender?

Answering these defenses of Charlie, Robics retorted that Charlie, although indeed an “equal-opportunity offender,” was blind to the subtle differences between the lived experiences of Muslims and the lived experiences of non-Muslim groups. It’s true that they eviscerated a broad swath of groups, she admitted, but these journalists didn’t realize that there is a qualitative difference between criticizing and ridiculing a community which is historically victimized (Muslims) as opposed to criticizing and ridiculing an elite ruling class (say, Catholics or nationalist elites). Victimhood status matters when criticizing groups collectively, and there’s a difference between “punching up” and “punching down” the social power chain. Charlie’s sin was that it punched at an oppressed victim.

Robics then proceeded to show several of Charlie’s more sexually vulgar and shocking pictures of the Muslim prophet Mohammed, the Jewish prophet Moses, the Christian founder Jesus, and the Pope.

The audience squealed and squirmed in disgust, presumably because some of these appeared “racially charged.”

The Long-awaited Reform: Ending the evening on an unexpected note, Lakous, the Muslim panelist, took a brief moment to discuss the potential of “reformism” in the Islamic world. He explained that he had deep and intimate contacts in Algeria, and from his sources, he thinks that reforming Islam will not be possible in Muslim-majority countries, where “Dictators, on the one hand, and fundamentalists, on the other hand, play with each other,” and their repressive nature reinforces and feeds into each other.

So he dismisses the potential for reforming Islam in these countries because of the absence of “Freedom” there. In contrast, because Muslims in Western countries enjoy more civil liberties, they have a premium opportunity to reform Islam. Besides, since they enjoy the additional advantage of “seeing Islam through a different perspective.”

Besides, since they enjoy the additional advantage of “seeing Islam through a different perspective,” they are particularly well situated.

Roberto Matos is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at rlm387@cornell.edu.

10

When Will the Killing Stop?

Three UNC Muslims murdered execution-style by atheist ideologue Abhinav Saikia Staff writer

P

arking disputes have never been so fatal.

The tragic murder of three young Muslim students at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC) was initially described by perpetrator Craig Hicks’ wife as an act caused by a parking dispute. In other words, Hicks supposedly put a bullet in the head of each victim, execution-style, for this motive.

went under-reported by the US mainstream media because of the religion of the victims.

Many claimed the crimes would have garnered more attention had the situation been reversed and it had been a White family gunned down by a Muslim gunman. A post on Twitter read, “Muslims only newsworthy when behind a gun. Not in front of it.”

Others have responded saying all major news networks covered the shooting, and comparing the UNC shooting

“The vigil raised the spirits of the Muslim community at Cornell, but I think that more concrete steps should be taken by the Cornell community at large to counter any Islamophobic narrative.” - Saim Ejaz Chaudhury ‘17 It is difficult to believe that such a preposterous explanation could gain even a modicum of credibility, and yet, while the local police force investigated the crime, this motive was used to bat away the elephant in the room: rising Islamophobia and its growing consequences in America.

Recent events have rightly magnified criticism on the more radical Islamic factions.

The attack on Charlie Hebdo, and the abhorrent actions committed by ISIS are justly condemned, and action should be taken against those who perpetrate such violence. However, responding to the actions of the radicals by committing an equally vicious crime against innocents should be met with equal outrage.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. Craig Hicks’ actions should have been immediately branded as a hate crime, but the media continue to dispute the veracity of the parking dispute claim. The truth of the matter is that many Americans are reluctant to confront this man’s actions for what they really were: cold-blooded murders committed in the way they were simply because the victims were Muslims. Most Americans have little doubt of Hick’s guilt, but are struggling to accept that blind hatred could have caused it.

It seems Hicks’ hatred was borne out of a sort of radical atheism, a disdain for all religious types, including Muslims. “People say nothing can solve the Middle East problem, not mediation, not arms, not financial aid. I say there is something. Atheism,” wrote Hicks on his Facebook.

Muslims worldwide were quick to assert that the killings

and the Charlie Hebdo and Paris kosher deli attacks is inappropriate given the widely different scales of each attack.

Either way, the problem here is that, for many Americans, Islam as a religion that has become synonymous with terrorism and Anti-western sentiment. As in many religions, the most radical factions of Islam have been the most vocal and destructive with their actions, and the constant media attention on their atrocities has transformed Western opinions of Muslims to one of fear and mistrust. Consequently, the emotional impact of the tragedy at UNC and of other crimes committed against Muslims is dulled, and the general public would rather attribute outrageous motives for these events rather than confront them as hate crimes.

Saim Ejaz Chaudhury ‘17 organized a vigil at Cornell to mourn the death of the three shooting victims. While he is thankful to all the people who came to show their respects and to grieve, he believes that more should be done.

“The vigil raised the spirits of the Muslim community at Cornell, but I think that more concrete steps should be taken by the Cornell community at large to counter any Islamophobic narrative,” he said.

It is of paramount importance to learn from the deaths of these innocent victims and to remove the veil of mistrust and fear through which many Americans view Islam today.

Image via Cornell Army ROTC

ROTC REPRESENTING: Cornell has Reserve Officer in Training (ROTC) programs for the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. According to U.S. Army Infantry veteran Seamus Murphy ‘16, detractors of ROTC programs “[lack] a sense of obligation to effect change.”

Liberal Brown Student Wrong on ROTC, Military Continued from page 4 When asked his thoughts on Makhlouf ’s article, Seamus Murphy ’16, a U.S. Army infantry veteran, expressed dismay that Makhlouf “lacks a sense of obligation to effect change.” Murphy argued no country or institution is perfect, but that it is the job of those who see fault to not just criticize, but put their efforts into bettering the situation.

Murphy also noted that he has “never directly” been treated with animosity for having been a veteran, but rather is often thanked by students. This speaks to the nature of civil-military relations at Cornell today: mostly cordial, but with a noticeable divide due to many student’s limited exposure to the all-volunteer force. Lastly, Murphy made the point that a greater presence of veteran students, and the experiences they bring with them, “enhances the environment” of higher education, where students learn not just from professors, but from each other.

Within the context of ROTC on campuses, this is a critical.

Brown has an open curriculum, so no history classes are required, but Makhlouf should familiarize himself with General Douglas MacArthur’s famous words: “The soldier, above all others, prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.”

Surely some readers may challenge my view by insisting that Makhlouf has a point. However, his argument fails to stand on its merits. His fear of establishing ROTC programs betrays a weak regard for his fellow students, who might fall prey to a “militant ethos.”

Surely no one, with seriousness, could say such a thing about Cornell. Throughout the article there is a consistent and disturbing fear of being exposed to what he disagrees with. This is a problem beyond ROTC and college campuses;

it characterizes the left-wing of American politics today.

At times his piece borders on nonsensical.

Claiming indoctrination on the part of ROTC for offering voluntary classes to interested students showcases Makhlouf’s hostility to diversity. It appears in this case, as George Will once wrote, that Makhlouf is “[celebrating] diversity in everything but thought.”

The military is subservient to, takes orders from, and is given direction by the President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the respective service secretaries. The military is not the carpenter, but the hammer. It is a tool to accomplish the objectives and protect the interests of the United States, not necessarily in a violent manner.

Makhlouf, seemingly convinced that the military enjoys the rigor and burden of combat, omits the variety of uses of the American military, including the recent Ebola containment mission (from which troops are now returning) and help to countries during natural disasters.

Furthermore, Makhlouf drastically mischaracterizes the motivations of military members.

Unsurprisingly, he shows no respect whatsoever for the sacrifices made by countless Americans just so he can live in a world where he is free to write his opinion columns.

As General Nathan Twining once said, “If our air forces are never used, they have achieved their finest goal.” This same principle applies across all of the services.

John Pedro is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at jmp488@cornell.edu.

Abhinav Saikia is a sophomore in the College of Engineering. He can be reached at as586@cornell.edu.

Cornell Air Force ROTC

Cornell Army ROTC

Cornell Naval ROTC

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From the Review Blog

Visit blog.thecornellreview.com for more blog posts by the staff of The Cornell Review.

Rise above liberal bias and abuse

Strapped for Cash

Ithaca College Student Activities Fund Depleted Shay Collins Campus News Editor

I

t has been a tough two weeks for student assemblies. On Feb. 9, nine Cornell Student Assembly representatives wrote a letter to the editor of the Cornell Daily Sun stating that they are “tired of acting as a wall between the students and the administration without being given real power.”

Ithaca College’s Student Government Association (SGA) has now announced that it ran out of money in its Student Activities Fund, and over-committed $2,000 to clubs. A recalculation revealed that the fund contained only $17,000, not $21,000 like the committed had believed, according to a Feb. 18 Ithacan article.

Vice President of Business and Finance Brandon Xing, ’14, stated that although the Association strives to spend the whole fund by the end of the school year, running out this early in the semester would hurt student organizations. The absence of funds will entirely affect student organizations that did not request funds from the SGA by or on Feb. 18.

Whereas the article elicited no comments on twitter or The Ithacan’s website, a few students and alumni voiced their disappointment on The Ithacan’s Facebook post. Facebook user Meghan Dailey wrote, “The fact that Ithaca College is one of the most expensive colleges, but can’t fund organizations for the students’ [sic] it is supposed to be serving is a testament to the terrible appropriation of money by upper management in this place.”

Sean Themea, Vice President of Ithaca College Conservatives, said, “The budget miscalculation will make it harder for many student organizations to put on their events this semester, since nobody expected the funds to run out so prematurely. Yes, students could gain valuable experience from finding alternative fundraising, but they shouldn’t have to be in that position in the first place.”

Ithaca College’s 2013-2014 Financial Report states that its endowment was $268, 214, 127 in 2014. Additionally, Ithaca College renovated the Hill Center, an athletic facility, starting in 2013 to the tune of $15.5 million according to the Ithaca College website.

According to the Ithacan article, Xing has taken a reasonable, conservative approach to the problem. Xing allowed any groups that already received funding to keep their resources and encouraged organizations to fundraise on their own, stating that organizations should “participate more heavily on fundraising and raising funds from outside sources — particularly student organizations that know they will incur specific costs every semester.”

Join The Cornell Review David Ticzon/The Cornell Review

‘We Can’t Breathe’ MLK Speech Continued from front page In one of her many bids to come off as quirky, Harris-Perry also equated Dr. King, an icon of peace who changed the nation and the world for the better, with Beyoncé, a pop singer who does not even write her own lyrics.

“We think of King as the one great voice, like Beyoncé,” said Harris-Perry.

Though the audience laughed along with Harris-Perry when she joked about the Tea Party, George W. Bush, Beyoncé, Southern black culture, and Ithaca’s weather, most in attendance were hesitant to cajole along with her when she boasted about her honorarium no fewer than three times. At one point the MSNBC host even quipping she would “be down with lower taxes” because of all the money she makes from her speaking circuit.

The cornerstone of her presentation--aside from the cringe-worthy spectacle she was making of herself--was the idea that the country must “break bodies [in order] to perfect the union.” During the presentation, the word “bodies” was used no fewer than 100 times in line with the emergent phraseology of leftist activism that places an undue emphasis on physicality rather than on actual thought. It is through “bodies” and “motion” and “spaces” that these modern-day leftist protesters and activists seek to effect change, not through “minds” and “thinking” and “ideas.” Harris-Perry went on to explain to the audience the struggle of “black bodies” throughout American history, showing slides on her accompanying PowerPoint depicting images of “bodies that have moved,” “bodies that would not be moved,” “bodies that sat,” “bodies that rose,” etc.

“We break bodies in order to... get to where we need to go,” she explained.

The importance of using the word “bodies” over, say, the word “people” is because bodies, being purely physical, cannot think, whereas

people--the union of body and mind--can. The problem for body-obsessed activists is that those who can think for themselves clearly do not drink their Kool-Aid. The MLK commemorator went on to discuss how fraught the past decade was for black bodies, citing the response to victims of Hurricane Katrina as well as the arrest of Harvard University professor Skip Gates in 2009. Referring to the Harvard professor, Harris-Perry said, “Your respectability cannot and will not save you…they went into his house and got him.”

The last segment of the presentation concerned art. Earlier in the speech Harris-Perry did lament how the movie ‘Selma’ only won one Academy Award, but in this drawn-out closing segment she spoke about the need for “black bodies” to become artists. Indeed, given the turmoil facing the country after a string of highly controversial white-on-black and black-onwhite crime cases, Harris-Perry’s solution for blacks and non-blacks alike it to become artists--singers, drawers, actors.

Once again, the new rhetoric of the activism class showed in Harris-Perry’s speech supposedly delivered in commemoration of Dr. King. Here on display was the infantilization, the self-parodying of the gravity of topic of discussion--race in America--by minimalizing the proper role of rationality and introspection to make room for galvanizing buzzwords and catchphrases.

Let us only hope Cornell will select a more refined, serious speaker next year. On campus, comedians should perform their skits in Bailey Hall, not in Sage Chapel in commemoration of Dr. King.

Laura Gundersen and Casey Breznick are sophomores in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. They can be reached at lcg63@cornell.edu and cb628@cornell.edu, respectively.

Melodies for Moms A night of a cappella and charity When: Thursday, March 5 at 10 pm Where: The Nines in Collegetown (301 College Ave.) Why: To fundraise for obstetric fistula surgeries for women in impoverished regions of Africa* Presented by

*Tickets are $5

12

WISEMEN & FOOLS The significant problems of our time can’t be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.

Albert Einstein

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

Robert Frost

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

Gerald Ford

Everything you add to the truth substracts from the truth.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

This used to be a government of checks and balances. Now it’s all checks and no balances.

Gracie Allen

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill

The fact that you’re pissed off does not the change the bottom line of the University.

David Skorton

There is no democracy without socialism and no socialism without democracy.

Rosa Luxemburg

But we cannot win this war [against ISIS] by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads [sic] people to join these groups, whether it’s lack of opportunity for jobs...

Marie Harf, State Dept.

Spokeswoman

I think the stigmas and stereotypes that keep so many people from pursuing a truly useful skill, begin with the mistaken belief that a fouryear degree is somehow superior to all other forms of learning. And I think that making elected office contingent on a college degree is maybe the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

Mike Rowe, TV host

The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the velocity with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.

Ralph Nader

Our policy is very simple. The Jewish state was set up to defend Jewish lives, and we always reserve the right to defend ourselves.

Benjamin Netanyahu

Civil rights laws were not passed to protect the rights of white men and do not apply to them.

Mary Frances Berry, former Chairwoman of the US Commission on Civil Rights

Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.

George Orwell

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Thomas Paine

Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time and your government when it deserves it.

Mark Twain

When does life begin? I submit the answer depends an awful lot on the feeling of the parents. A powerful feeling – but not science.

Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC host

Politicians are the lowest form of life on earth. Liberal Democrats are the lowest form of politicians.

General George S. Patton

Change change change change change change change change change change change change Barack change Obama change change change change change change change

JUST THE NUMBERS $11,000

Amount raised for Cornell’s ‘Pink the Rink’ fundraiser

21

Number of Coptic Christians recently beheaded by ISIS

$16,000

Amount spent by the University of Michigan on “inclusivity” efforts

$100,000,000

Cost to retrofit coal-fired Cayuga Power Plant with natural gas technology

20%

Percentage of the Student Health Fee going towards paying Gannett’s debts

2

Number of times The Cornell Review has been featured on Fox News in February

$18,200,000,000 Our ever-increasing national debt

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