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The Corne¬ Daily Sun

‘Heart of the Strike’

from behind the picket line

By MING DeMERS

Since the first day of new student orientation, United Auto Workers Local 2300 workers have been on strike, withholding essential labor from Cornell’s dining, building care and grounds maintenance.

The UAW Local 2300, which represents more than 1,000 Cornell workers, announced their strike on Aug. 18 at 10 p.m. Negotiations stretched on over the summer and have stalled at numerous points, with pay being a major point of contention. The UAW has accused Cornell of not paying workers a fair hourly salary.

Every UAW-affiliated University employee earns more than $18.45 per hour — an amount researchers at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations consider a liveable wage in Ithaca. However, many told The Sun they are barely scraping by.

Union workers at Cornell earn hourly wages ranging from $19.17 to $35.51, based on a tiered system. The tiers rank from S01 to S12, with higher grades on the pay scale indicating higher wages. Most food service workers and custodians are Grade S02 and make $20.03 per hour. After three years, their wage increases to $20.85 an hour.

While UAW workers are on strike, the University has tried to enlist non-union employees, retirees and temporary workers to fill in for staff shortages.

Workers have been picketing daily

from sunrise to sunset in various locations around Ithaca, including A-Lot and Triphammer Mall. Vehicles passing the protestors, including TCAT Busses and Cornellaffiliated trucks, can often be heard honking in support.

The Sun has been closely following this strike, speaking with the people behind the picket line. These are their stories.

“The Heart and Soul of Cornell”

David Sepulveda, famously known around campus as “Happy Dave” or “Dancing Dave,” has been serving the Cornell community for 44 years, greeting diners daily at Okenshields on Ho Plaza. Generations of students recognize Sepulveda for his upbeat attitude.

“Because of my happy disposition, I try to have a positive attitude when I come to work, and people pick up on that,” Sepulveda told The Sun.

UAW Local 2300 gained national recognition in 1980. It was a long fight to get ratified, Sepulveda remembered. Sepulveda recalled being part of the union’s organizing from the very beginning, helping to start a strike that lasted two and a half weeks that year.

“The union was young at that point. A lot of people were scared because they were uncertain about what the future held for them,” Sepulveda said.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Ming DeMers can be reached at mdemers@cornellsun.com.

Day Hall Defaced on Day 1

By JULIA SENZON Sun Managing Editor

“Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” were spray painted in red along the front entrance of Day Hall — Cornell’s main administrative building.

The front door glass was also smashed, and yellow caution tape was wrapped around the building’s entrance on the morning of Aug. 26 as repair workers came to mend the damage.

In a statement to The Sun, the activists behind the graffiti said, “We had to accept that the only way to make ourselves heard is by targeting the only thing the university administration truly cares about: property.”

“With the start of this new academic year, the Cornell administration is trying desperately to upkeep a facade of normalcy knowing that, since last semester, they have been working tirelessly to

By MATTHEW KIVIAT, OLIVIA HOLLOWAY and MING DeMERS Sun News Editor, Sun Senior Writer and Sun Photography Editor

Following months of negotiations between the University and Cornell’s chapter of United Auto Workers, a strike officially began the night of Aug. 18 for over 1,000 Cornell food service workers, mechanics, custodians and other University employees. Immediate impacts of the strike have already been felt around campus, as thousands of new students started to move in.

The picketing comes after the University and UAW Local 2300 — the union represent-

uphold Cornell’s function as a fascist, classist, imperial machine,” the activists, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote.

The pro-Palestine activists targeted Day Hall on the first day of the fall semester, amid a historic strike from Cornell workers and following two semesters of extensive pro-Palestine demonstrations.

The activists claimed that former president Martha Pollack “tried to sneak away into retirement” after declining to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and divestment from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel, despite students voting overwhelmingly in favor of both actions on a referendum.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Julia Senzon can be reached at jsenzon@cornellsun.com.

ing around 1,200 Cornell employees — failed to reach an agreement to avert the movein week strike by the union’s Sunday night deadline.

UAW Local 2300’s demands include improvements in workplace safety, wage increases consistent with increases in the cost of living and free parking.

Dozens of UAW strikers gathered in picket locations on the morning of Aug. 19 as new students wandered campus with their families. Strikers stood outside Day Hall, Bill and Melinda Gates Hall and at the corner of Tower Road and Campus Road near Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine campus. Kelly Tracy, a food service worker, led chants outside with a crowd of around thirty at Day Hall, prompting honking in support from cars and TCAT buses passing by. Occasionally, the group walked into and around the intersection, temporarily blocking traffic.

pro-Palestine protesters smashed the windows and spray painted the front of Day Hall, Cornell’s main administrative building.

Happy Dave | David Sepuleda, An iconic Cornell Dining worker, stands at the UAW strike along with other Cornell workers to fight to fair wages and treatment.

Sun Photography Editor

A LISTING OF FREE CAMPUS EVENTS

CML Rallies, Police Demand Protesters Show Teir IDs

About 150 protesters from The Coalition for Mutual Liberation marched from Ho Plaza into Klarman Hall on Monday Aug. 26, chanting “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.”

Approximately 20 minutes after the protesters filled Klarman, police arrived and asked demonstrators to present student IDs for referral for potential disciplinary action.

The demonstration marked the first of the 2024-2025 academic year and was organized by The Coalition for Mutual Liberation — an umbrella organization representing over 40 groups in and around Cornell.

Once in Klarman, CML activists unveiled a banner reading “Peoples school coming soon,” which they hung off the railing with zip ties.

A “People’s University” banner was displayed at CML’s encampment in the 2024 spring semester, referring to a section of the camp dedicated to educational programming.

In the last weeks of the 2024 spring semester, CML established an encampment on the Arts Quad to demand changes to University investments, policing and curriculum.

While no students were arrested during the encampment — contrasting with similar demonstrations at peer institutions — several students were suspended for the remainder of the spring academic term.

While Monday’s protest was centered around Palestine, it also touched on the ongoing labor dispute between United Auto Workers Local 2300 — the union representing University food service, custodial, maintenance and other workers — and the University.

UAW Local 2300 has been on strike since Sunday, Aug. 18, when the University and the union failed to agree to a contract by the union’s stated deadline.

UAW Region Nine President Daniel Vicente criticized the University in his speech in Klarman, both for its refusal to meet UAW demands and for its support for Israel — which he called the “Zionist state.”

“Our fight does not end when our contract is signed,” Vicente said. “You guys are going to have to keep pressuring.”

As more police officers arrived

and asked students to present identification, demonstration leaders urged the crowd to disperse in groups. The police pulled the banner back from the railing and moved it away from Klarman.

The police told a student asking about repercussions for demonstrators that those who refused to present identification would still see consequences.

“They’re going to face repercussions. Absolutely. It’s all right here,” the officer said, pointing to his body camera.

When the student asked about what would happen to repeat disciplinary offenders, the officer said, “Well, they are going to find out. Because if it’s their second round of not complying, they won’t be here. I don’t know,” while shrugging.

In an Instagram post and flier publicizing the demonstration, CML insinuated that Interim President Michael Kotlikoff’s lack of movement on pro-Palestine activists’ demands may lead to his leaving the presidency.

“If you don’t divest, you’re next,” CML wrote in the post.

Pictures of each of the four recently resigned Ivy League presi-

dents were crossed out in the post, captioned by their date of resignation or retirement. Kotlikoff’s picture was captioned “TBD.”

Since Oct. 7, the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia have resigned in connection with backlash over their response to unrest on campus.

Former president Martha Pollack, who announced her retirement in May, claimed that she independently decided to leave and did not explicitly connect her retirement to protest activity.

Kotlikoff, in only the second month of his term, has already faced a torrent of opposition from pro-Palestine and labor activists.

On Monday morning, red spray-painted pro-Palestine messages reading “Israel bombs, Cornell pays” and “Blood is on your hands” were found scrawled on Day Hall. The front door was also shattered.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Julia Senzon and Kate Sanders can be reached at jsenzon@cornellsun. com and ksanders@cornellsun.com.

Elderly Find Group Mental Health Care at Pearls of Wisdom

By KIRA WALTER Lifestyle Editor

Kira Walter is a reporter from Te Cornell Daily Sun who worked under Te Sun’s summer fellowship at Te Ithaca Times. Tis piece was originally published in Te Ithaca Times.

With post-pandemic pressures and social media angst, many mental health resources are directed towards young adults. Professionals allot less time to other age demographics, but at the Mental Health Association in Tompkins County, there is a program dedicated to fighting this trend.

For two years, the Pearls Of Wisdom Senior Support Group has serviced members of the 55+ community experiencing mental health struggles related to aging. The group meets on Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to noon, free from commitment or cost. A safe space for seniors to openly discuss their lives, this project has provided consistent relief and solutions to Ithacans in the later stages of life.

Since its beginnings, Pearls Of Wisdom has expanded its reach, with multiple regular members and frequent visitors using meetings as a sharing platform. It is led by state-certified peer specialists Larry Albro and Micaela Corazón, who have been devoted to assisting Tompkins County seniors for many years.

Albro, who founded the support group in 2022, spent a large part of his career working for in-home family care. He was inspired to create Pearls Of Wisdom after witnessing one patient’s uphill battle with depression and isolation. His

mission throughout the program has been to provide a place where seniors can reflect on their experiences and engage with each other.

“We really don’t care what people’s diagnoses are. What we want to know is how they’re doing at the moment,” Albro said. “We want to meet people where they are and have conversations, share our journeys.”

Embarking on this project with Albro, Corazón recognized the disparity facing Ithaca’s senior demographic. Her past in supporting AIDS patients gave her insight into the medical trials seniors face, while many years as director of the Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service Of Tompkins County crisis line have prepared her for online assistance. Regarding common issues this age group faces, she also spoke about the loneliness many people face at this time in their lives.

“These are scary times, especially if you’re single,” Corazón said. “You want to know how many people are there for you.”

As so many seniors endure isolation, Pearls Of Wisdom has served as both a healing space and a social forum. Albro and Corazón aim to facilitate discussion rather than direct it, fostering organic conversations by beginning every meeting with a round table check-in. Participants take three to five minutes to debrief what is happening in their week and review how they are feeling.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun. com.

Kira Walter can be reached at kwalter@cornellsun.com.

Klarman commotion | Protesters hung a banner reading “People’s school coming soon” from the balcony.

By JULIA SENZON and KATE SANDERS Sun Managing Editor and Sun News Editor

Greenstar Welcomes Fresh Savings With Emphasis on Afordability

By KIRA WALTER Sun Lifestyle Editor

Greenstar Co-op recently welcomed Double Up Food Bucks, a state-wide initiative that lets shoppers purchase twice as much produce for their dollar. DUFB, which applies to individuals receiving SNAP benefits, expands the grocer’s Fresh, Local Organic Within Everyone’s Reach discount program. Politicians and food justice activists gathered outside Greenstar’s Cascadilla Street location on July 17 to celebrate DUFB’s with live music and drinks.

While swept up in the festivities, Greenstar General Manager Jeff Bessemer expressed his excitement to the Ithaca Times.

“It’s going to allow so many people to buy great local produce because it’s just so much more available,” Bessemer said.

Bessemer has managed FLOWER since beginning his position two years ago, finding innovative ways to make groceries more accessible for all members of the Ithaca community. The program extends to SNAP users and customers receiving financial assistance from government or non-profit agencies.

In addressing the significance of DUFB, Bessemer discussed how low-income families struggle to keep farm-fresh items a priority

when feeding their children. While Ithaca is surrounded by agricultural fields, there remains a disconnect between family farms and family tables — fresh fruits and vegetables escape many budgets. With this initiative, Greenstar aims to address this issue.

“For people on SNAP, [DUFB] doubles the amount of money they have to spend on produce at local farms like Stick & Stone, Remembrance Farm and Plowbreak,” Bessemer said. “If someone couldn’t access that produce before, now they can, because their money goes twice as far.”

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

United Auto Workers Begin Historic Strike

STRIKE Continued from page 1

Tracy, who has worked at Cornell for eighteen years, told The Sun that having a job at the University has become less promising than when she began working on campus.

“When I first started here, Cornell was like a great place to live. You knew that if you got a job here, you were good,” Tracy said. “And then, as the years progressed, it has been getting harder and harder.”

Sam Poole ’28 joined the picket line to support UAW before moving in. Poole expressed disappointment with the administration’s current negotiations with the union and hopes to talk to union leaders to see how he can further help the UAW’s cause.

“I’m not crossing a picket line, no matter what happens,” Poole said. “I will find other places to eat, or we’ll eat snacks on the picket line.”

In a statement sent to the Cornell community Aug. 19, Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Christine Lovely and Interim Provost John Siliciano gave an update on current and previous negotiations and expectations during the strike.

The statement started with the administrators asserting that the University has continued to “negotiate in good faith with the UAW” and how despite their best efforts at avoiding a strike, UAW officials rejected their last offer.

According to the administrators, the last offer included a 17.5 percent increase in wages that are compounded over the four years of the contract and an immediate wage increase of 10.3 percent for the lowest-paid employees.

In a press release from the UAW issued Aug. 19, it claimed that the final offer from the University was only a 15.5 percent wage increase over four years. The statement further explained that UAW Local 2300 countered their offer with a “25 percent wage increase and the elimination of tiered wages” but failed to negotiate by their 10 p.m. deadline.

The statement from the UAW added that while the University had months to bargain with the UAW, it only got serious right before the 10 p.m. deadline, reflecting in their view, a lack of caring for its employees.

“This strike is a direct result of University management not valuing its employees and treating working class people like they are an expendable afterthought,” the statement read.

In the strike announcement on X, formerly known as Twitter, the UAW explained that workers are “facing declining real wages even as Cornell’s endowment has ballooned and tuition revenue has skyrocketed.”

The University clarified its $10 billion endowment in the statement, adding that much of its use is “restricted by agreements with donors” and how New York State Law dictates how much can be drawn from it. It was also noted that Cornell spent $366 million in fiscal year 2023 to pay for expenses workers are calling for, and an increase could make the University “raise tuition to unmanageable levels to cover the cost.”

The Cornell statement also explained that as the University is in “unprecedented territory,” there will need to be “flexibility in reassigning staff” to help with other services.

On Monday morning, Aug. 19, breakfast service at Morrison Dining — the only North Campus dining hall that is open for the rest of the week — was noticeably reduced, as limited food options were available to students. Fruit was piled high all around the cafeteria, and signs near the food lines read “all lines have the same menu options.”

By lunch, operations at Morrison Dining appeared to have improved, as more food options were made available to newly moved-in students.

At each station, food was served out of disposable aluminum trays with plastic catering tongs as opposed to the usual commercial trays and pans. Long lines formed at each dining area, and diners used paper plates and plastic utensils to eat instead of the typical reusable offerings.

A manager working at Morrison Dining on Monday morning, Aug. 19, declined to comment when asked by The Sun about the service changes.

Among the other campus dining locations closed on Monday were North Star Dining, Okenshields, Terrace and Mac’s Café.

After a long day of action and mobilization from University workers, Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, spoke at the Democratic National Convention and applauded the ongoing strike at Cornell.

“The American working class is in a fight for our lives, and if you don’t believe me, just last night, blue collar workers — UAW members — at Cornell University had to walk out on strike for a better life because they’re fighting corporate greed,” Fain said. “Our only hope is to attack corporate greed head on.”

Frugal fruit | Greenstar Co-op now offers Double Up Food Bucks, allowing shoppers to save money on produce.

JULIA NAGEL / SUN FILE PHOTO

Kira Walter can be reached at kwalter@cornellsun.com.

Olivia Holloway, Matthew Kiviat and Ming DeMers can be reached at oholloway@cornellsun.com, mkiviat@cornellsun.com and mdemers@ cornellsun.com.

Kira Walter is a reporter from Te Cornell Daily Sun who worked under Te Sun’s summer fellowship at Te Ithaca Times. Tis piece was originally published in Te Ithaca Times.

The Corne¬ Daily Sun Independent Since 1880

142nd

Masthead

GABRIEL LEVIN 26

Editor in Chief

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Associate Editor

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Photography Editor

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Arts & Culture Editor

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Social Media Editor

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Lifestyle Editor

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The Sun’s View

Te Sun Supports the Strike

Classes don’t start for a week, but Cornell is already back to its miserly ways. This time, it’s in negotiations with their employees, members of the United Auto Workers Local 2300. Negotiating for simple, common-sense guarantees of a safe and dignified working environment at an Ivy League school, workers have found themselves facing obstinate administrators who’d rather brush their needs aside than sign a fair contract. Now, with 94 percent of members voting in favor, the union has begun a historic strike. The Sun stands in solidarity with striking workers and echoes their demands: We call on all students, alumni and faculty to do the same.

If you read the email statements the University has sent the Cornell community, you might get the impression that workers are asking for the moon. But what’s the union actually demanding? Wage increases that match the ballooning cost of living, free parking and measures to better guarantee workplace health and safety. In forcing a strike over the demand that workers be able to afford to live, University administrators continue to run Cornell’s reputation into the ground by consistently prioritizing profits over people.

Rather than seriously asking how an Ivy League university could fail its workers in their fight for a fair contract, administrators have decided to play the blame game, and have tried to pit students against employees. They’ve threatened to raise tuition, vaguely gestured at need-blind admissions and whined that strikers are invoking the obscene $10 billion endowment as a justification for a living wage. If Cornell really can’t afford these basic demands, which is a dubious claim, perhaps it ought to consider cutting overhead and downsizing its pencil-pushing, bureaucratic, do-nothing administration.

At Cornell’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the right to unionize and bargain is held sacred. When the University turns its back on workers, failing to extend its founding promise of equity for “any person” to those who make our dining halls run and keep our buildings clean, it renders the whole project hollow. Whether it’s cracking down on dissent throughout last year’s sham free expression theme year or paying its workers less than what they deserve, our administration seems to act directly against its stated values.

As students move in and start classes, student workers will likely be asked to fill the responsibilities of strikers and cross the picket line to maintain business as usual. The Sun urges Cornellians to reject the status quo, respect the picket line and affirm Cornell’s commitment to dignity at work, even if our administrators won’t. — The Editorial Board

Nick Wilson

Nick Wilson is a third year student in the School of Industrial & Labor Relations. His biweekly column Interim Expressive Activity provides a perspective on goings-on on campus from those who believe that Cornell should act less like a hedge fund and more like a responsible stakeholder in the Ithaca and global communities. Te column does not intend to facilitate, engage in, participate or assist in any violations of University policy. Nick can be reached at nwilson@cornellsun.com.

On Strike for a REAL Ofer

“In my opinion, Cornell’s bargaining team has thought since the beginning that because they have fancy degrees and lofty titles that we don’t, our workers can’t read or do math. This strike is a direct result of University management not valuing its employees and treating working class people like they are an expendable afterthought… Today we take it to the streets. UAW members will wait for the university to come to the table with a REAL offer that reflects the truly essential nature of our workforce…” — UAW Region 9 Director Daniel Vicente in a statement on Aug. 20.

In the first sentence of the administration’s first email appeal to students regarding UAW Local 2300’s strike at Cornell, VP Ryan Lombardi wrote that the University has “negotiate[d] in good faith with the UAW over a new labor contract for our service and maintenance workers.” This sentence might seem neutral, but it subtly tricks the reader.

Cornell is not negotiating with the UAW over Cornell workers’ contract, it is bargaining with the service and maintenance workers themselves. Local 2300’s Bargaining Team is led by and largely made up of Cornell workers who dedicate their limited free time to fighting to improve the lives of their coworkers. Its president, Christine Johnson, has worked at Cornell for 19 years — 15 years longer than most students will end up spending in Ithaca.

Despite this, Lombardi opts to refer to the Bargaining Team as “UAW employees” — which could plausibly be read as “employees represented by the UAW,” but will undoubtedly be understood by some students as “employees of the UAW.” Cornell’s casting of the UAW as a mysterious intermediary intervening on behalf of its workers — rather than a collective organization of the workers themselves — is an example of third-partying, a common union-busting tactic.

Later in the email, Lombardi provides students with a grim, vague warning: “You may see individuals holding signs and chanting phrases around campus related to the ongoing union negotiations.” But as students, we see those “individuals” around campus all the time — making us meals in our top-rated dining halls, cleaning our residence halls and classrooms and repairing the many things students break during our time at Cornell.

Students should be much more concerned about the untrained individuals Cornell has hired as scabs during the strike, whose food safety training amounted to a few bullet points in a mass email sent out on Aug. 21. Cornell has resorted to asking faculty, retirees and nonunion staff members to cross the picket line and replace the essential labor of 1,200 UAW members. This is a dangerous and fundamentally unsustainable strategy that harms and divides the campus community as a whole.

Lombardi’s email also includes a “Negotiation Details” section, which spends more words talking about the intricacies of endowment management than it does describing the offers made at the bargaining table. The implication that workers represented by the UAW — which represents over 100,000 workers in higher education — are demanding more because they do not understand the economics of university endowments is deeply patronizing.

I don’t think students need to have an opinion on the minutiae of what a fair contract for Cornell workers should include — I’ll leave that to the workers who will have to live under the contract’s terms. But reasonable people can agree that Lombardi’s description of a proposal below the Ithaca living wage as “his-

toric” is absurd. Throughout the email, Lombardi’s tone makes the administration’s stance clear: the University cannot feasibly improve their offer, and UAW members are being foolish and unreasonable by demanding more.

Could this university function normally if our Chief Investment Officer, Kenneth Miranda, were paid less than $2,671,714 per year? Could students endure living without the new $55 million athletic facility announced last year? Are university dollars best spent funding the research and development of advanced weapons technology for the Israeli military?

Instead of reviewing other areas of its supposedly-meager spending budget, Cornell has decided to find out how well the University functions without the people who take out the trash, mow the grass and cook the food on our campus. We’re already starting to hear stories from students about how that experiment is going: overflowing trash cans, reheated food and hilarious amounts of fruit in dining halls and maintenance requests in residence halls going unanswered. The situation will only worsen as more students return to campus.

The strike has already revealed why UAW members at Cornell believe they deserve a substantially better deal than Cornell has offered — they keep our campus running, and have the collective power to shut it down. In UAW Region 9 Director Daniel Vicente’s words, Local 2300 wants “a REAL offer.” Not an offer that resembles previous contracts, not an offer that fits within Cornell’s anticipated labor budget, but an offer that actually reflects the essential nature of our service and maintenance workers’ labor. An offer under which Cornell workers can thrive — not just scrape by.

If you want to understand what’s at stake in this strike, delete VP Lombardi’s bogus email, head to campus and strike up a conversation with a worker on the picket line. They are more than prepared to tell you about what it’s like to drive to work from far outside of Ithaca due to the sky-high cost of living, pay Cornell to park nowhere near their workplace, ride the notoriously unreliable TCAT to work and then be disciplined if they end up being a few minutes late.

Cornell needs to know that our community is united behind our service and maintenance workers’ demand for a truly historic contract, and the best way to demonstrate our solidarity is not crossing the picket line, or scabbing. Cornell has already hired temporary workers and asked non-union staff, faculty, and retirees to work in the place of union members, undermining Local 2300’s leverage.

Though individual situations may vary, most non-union, non-managerial employees are legally protected to refuse to cross the picket line. My organization, Cornell YDSA, has collaborated with labor lawyers in the region and law students in Cornell’s chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to set up a strike hotline for Cornell workers seeking advice or resources related to not crossing the picket line. We can guarantee free legal support and representation to any protected Cornell workers who are illegally disciplined, fired or retaliated against for refusing to cross the UAW 2300 picket line.

Cornell community members can also sign our solidarity petition showing their support for our service and maintenance workers, and show up on the picket lines cropping up across campus. The Cornell administration thinks that they can turn students, faculty, non-union staff and other members of our community against the workers we depend on every day. Let’s prove them wrong.

Prof. David A. Bateman

He can be reached at dab465@cornell.

What It Is to Break a Strike

Members of the Cornell community — custodians, groundskeepers, cooks, food service workers, greenhouse employees, gardeners, mechanics and others — are on strike. As the administration has acknowledged, the work these employees do is absolutely essential to the basic operation of the University. None of us can work, learn, research or teach in their absence.

Naturally, the strike has placed enormous stress on the institution. Basic work can’t be done.

And so the University leadership has asked us all to “step up” and pitch in, with emails from central administration, many colleges and other units giving guidelines on how all of us — students, faculty, staff, etc. — can do “our part.” To take extra responsibility to keep facilities clean. To volunteer for additional shifts. To serve food to students in dining halls. Retirees have been invited to fill in for former colleagues. The University leadership wants us to think of this as a noble, community effort to ensure that our students are fed, our facilities are clean and that Cornell continues to function despite the absence of its essential workers.

No doubt some of us have an inherent impulse to “step up” and do our part. This is natural, and the desire to help is a good one. We probably all believe that we should contribute when there is a crisis. And we hold in some contempt those who refuse to do so, who treat additional work produced by a crisis as someone else’s responsibility.

A labor strike, however, is one of those vital moments where a deeper logic is revealed. Strikes reveal the moral inadequacy of “community” as a guiding principle, how “stepping up” and “chipping in” can in fact be a cover for immoral actions.

A labor strike is not equivalent to a natural disaster or a crisis outside of our making. A strike reveals a profound conflict within our community, in this case one that is the result of the University’s own policies and choices. These include Cornell’s consistent refusal to recognize or pay for the considerable costs associated with its successes — a cost-of-living crisis in Ithaca and surrounding communities — and its desire to keep in its control as much of the value produced by its workforce as it can.

The workers represented by UAW 2300 have voted, democratically and overwhelmingly, to collectively withhold their labor until this conflict is resolved on terms that allow them to live and thrive.

The capacity to collectively withhold labor is the only real source of power work-

Bers have. In this context, “stepping up” or “doing our part” in the way that the University would like takes on a very different meaning. The workers have chosen to withhold their labor. The University would like us to replace it. This is not chipping in – it is choosing a side. When we replace striking labor, whether in their jobs or the work that they would be doing, we attack and undermine our friends and colleagues in their collective decisions and struggle. To “step up” in this context means taking the side of their employer, who wields enormous power over their lives and the lives of many others.

This is what it means to break a strike. This is what it means to scab.

“Community” can be a vague, empty term. We only imbue it with meaning through our actions. The University leadership has shown us its vision of “community.” It has shown this vision of community in its persistent refusal to recognize the value of its workers and the costs it imposes on Ithaca and neighboring communities. It has shown this vision of community in its misleading communications, wrongly implying that members of the Cornell community are outside employees of the UAW. It has shown this vision in spending what must be, after successive campaigns, millions of dollars to strike-breaking and union-busting firms, in order to undermine the democratic decisions of its employees. And it has shown this vision of community in its requests to employees to replace the work of their friends and colleagues.

The University appeals to our better natures, to our commitment to community, to conceal their real ask: to betray these friends and colleagues, at the moment when they are most in need of our support.

The Cornell leadership of the UAW 2300 chapter, by contrast, has shown a richer vision of what community needs and what it can be. They too appeal to our desire to help out, to step up. They have asked for solidarity, rather than to undermine each other. To not replace striking labor or the work that they do. To show up on the picket line. To voice support. To demand that Cornell sign a fair contract. They have asked us to take the side of those members of our community fighting for a better life. They have asked us to stand with them.

And in so doing, they are teaching us that real community can only be forged by a honest appraisal of injustice and unfairness, by a real understanding of the power that a few employers and institutional

Letters to the Editor

angs Ambulance Workers United stands in Solidarity with our Sisters and Brothers of UAW 2300. We support their decision to strike and we salute their courage to stand up for themselves.

The wages and benefits of working people in Ithaca must match the cost of living here. Ithaca has traditionally considered itself to be a progressive pro-labor city. However the reality is often the opposite. Increasingly, we find our work is outsourced, our contracts are ignored and our voices are not heard. We’ve seen this happen not only in the private sector, but for municipal workers as well. This is not a sustainable direction for our community.

Cornell University has demonstrated the capacity to do the right thing in the past — we believe it can and should do so again — especially when it involves the needs of its own workers. By coming to terms at the bargaining table, Cornell can redeem itself as the largest employer in our area. This is the change in direction we all need, not just for Cornell, but for our entire community.

We encourage everyone to join us in supporting UAW 2300. Stand up for your union, stand up for your workers and stand up with your people!

Respectfully,

— Matt Sullivan, president John Schwartz, vice president, Bangs Ambulance Workers United

Tiffany Chen Kumar

Tiffany Chen Kumar is a senior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She serves on the Ithaca Common Council as the Alderperson of Ward 4 (Collegetown and most of campus) and the city’s labor liaison, and she sits on the Cornell-City working group.

We Need to Stand by Striking Workers

Cornell University does not care about you. No matter what work you do for the University, how high your grades are or how much you sacrifice to pay that tuition bill, the leaders of this institution do not care about us. They don’t care about their students, their workers or the people of Ithaca. They only care about lining their pockets, propping up a façade of progressivism and appeasing their billionaire trustees. But now, it’s finally time to cut the crap. Our workers, with a strong mandate from the national UAW and workers across the country, are not standing for it any longer.

Right now, 75-80 percent of Cornell workers earn well below a living wage. 70-75 percent can’t even afford to live in the same county as this University, let alone in Ithaca. They’re being pushed out, forced to leave their homes as Cornell’s gentrification machine keeps on churning. While Cornell’s endowment has soared by 39 percent, and tuition has increased by 13 percent, workers’ buying power has fallen by five percent. I feel ashamed to be part of this institution, to be giving them my money, and you should too.

The demands these workers are making are not radical. They want an end to exploitative tiered employment systems. They want basic workplace safety. They want wages that keep pace with inflation, let alone the cost of living. They just want to live with dignity, to do their jobs without fearing for their safety, to not starve while serving us every day.

This administration does not care about us. According to data from the Cornell Undergraduate Experience survey, 26 percent of our students often or very often don’t have enough to eat. That’s one in four of us going hungry at a university with a ten billion dollar endowment. And what did Cornell do about it? Instead of addressing this crisis, they removed the question from their next survey. Ignoring our hunger doesn’t make it disappear, but that’s how this administration operates — if they can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Our underfunded TCAT system has been forced to overwork drivers and slash routes that most of us rely on. All the while, this University lines the pockets of administrators who live very different lives than the realities most of us face every day. In 2022, the compensation for top administrators exceeded $12.4 million.

But we all have stories about the janitors, the dining hall attendants, the staff who have been there for us. Those who also lived or spent time in Risley Hall probably know

Garry, the card swiper who learns everyone’s name, who asks how our rehearsals and exams went, who made us feel seen in a strange new place.

Cornell would be nothing without our workers — the ones who pour your coffee, clean your bathrooms, teach you, serve food in the dining halls, run the front desks; first responders, sanitation workers, our grad students. They care for you. And this time, they will no longer be sidelined and silenced into submission. They are the beating heart of this institution, and yet the University treats them like they’re expendable.

It’s time to stand for those who actually do care for us, day in and day out. Cornell’s wealth is built on the backs of these workers, the same people they try to push out of sight and out of mind. But we won’t let that happen. We have the power to change this, as long as we act now. Don’t walk past these workers and pretend they don’t exist. They care more about us than Cornell ever will. They just want to be able to live and work in this city, to do their jobs without injury or exhaustion and to not go hungry while they’re feeding us. These are our people, our true community and it’s time we show them the respect they deserve.

Cornell doesn’t care about us. But we can, and we must, care for each other. Let’s stand together, fight together and demand the justice and dignity that every member of our community deserves. This is our fight, and we’re going to win.

So here’s my challenge to you: Don’t just talk about it — be about it. Show up. Stand up. Speak out. Whether it’s on the picket line, in the classroom, with your friends or in The Sun, make your voice heard. Let everybody know that we’re not backing down, that we’re not going away, that we’re here to fight — and that we’re going to win.

Until then, here are some options for students seeking alternate meal arrangements:

The Cornell Food Pantry provides free food and supplies for all students, and you can find a warm meal at Loaves & Fishes on weekdays. The Ithaca Dump and Run is a great place to find non-perishable foods and other essential goods, and it’s open until Aug. 25. Other resources can be found at the Friendship Donation Network, and please do not hesitate to reach out to me any time at tkumar@cityofithaca.org for further support, whether it be needing resources, legal support or any other form of strike support.

Editor’s Note: This letter was sent to the president of UAW 2300 on Aug. 23.

When we met yesterday morning, we asked the United Autoworkers’ Union to confirm its priorities for reaching an agreement. The UAW stated its key priorities were for the University to adopt the UAW’s structure for two rates (job rate and hire rate), eliminate the “quad” rate and to put more money on the table.

The University’s proposal presented to the UAW on Thursday afternoon addressed these priorities, adopting the UAW structure and significantly increasing the University’s wage proposal in the first year. We made this change in structure at the UAW’s insistence, although our Sunday night proposal would have provided more than 800 employees increases on ratification ranging from 9.2 percent to 24 percent. These adjustments to the University’s proposal were in addition to our agreements during our weekend bargaining sessions to address the UAW’s demand for a Cost of Living Adjustment (“COLA”) and a four year agreement.

When we met with you in the afternoon, the UAW proposal showed no movement on the wage percentages across the term of the contract. In fact, the proposal added demands that we believed the UAW had withdrawn, modified proposals where we thought we had agreement and included new demands related to the resolution of the strike. While I believe the University made significant steps toward an agreement with the UAW, the parties remain far apart.

To read the full letter, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

— Laurie M. Johnston, Sr. Director, Staff and Labor Relations, Department of Human Resources, Cornell University

David A. Bateman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government. His research focuses broadly on democratic institutions; he is an expert in the American legislative branch.

SC I ENCE & TECH

Harmful Algal Blooms Strike Cayuga Over The Summer

By Kira Walter Sun Lifestyle Editor

Following a year of monthly global temperature records, the health of Cayuga Lake was under the spotlight over the summer. Three harmful algal blooms were reported from the shoreline in early June, with ample reports into July and early August, more are promised for late summer.

After HABs were first reported on the lake in 2014, they have become central to the conversation around protecting water quality in the Finger Lakes. HABs are caused by excessive cyanobacteria — algae — growth that results from multiple stressors on Cayuga’s ecosystem. These include excess phosphorus pollution, the presence of invasive mussels — Zebra and Quagga mussels — and rising water temperatures due to climate change.

Some species of cyanobacteria produce toxins that accumulate during a bloom event and threaten the health of other organisms that come into contact with them. Early HAB sightings this season prompted discussion around the HABs monitoring season, including when lab analysis of samples should begin.

“The official HABs monitoring season doesn’t start until July,” said Grascen Shidemantle, the executive director of the Community Science Institute

The Community Science Institute is a local nonprofit organization that leads the Cayuga Lake HABs Monitoring Program.

On June 3 and 12, CSI volunteers discovered two blooms at the north end of the

lake near Seneca Falls. On June 16, another bloom was discovered just south of the Ithaca Yacht Club. Because these reports occurred before official monitoring, samples were not collected. Still, they appeared as “suspicious blooms” on C.S.I’s publically accessible online HABs database.

According to a June 24 press release by Tompkins County Whole Health, cyanobacteria takes on a bright green color. HABs have a paint-like appearance, materializing in “blue-green oily swirls, parallel green streaks or floating mats.”

TCWH advises residents to keep a fair distance from potential HABs and look for them throughout neighboring bodies of water.

“Avoid contact with the water if it appears discolored or has an unpleasant odor. Do not allow pets to swim in water where suspicious cyanobacteria blooms are present. Hot

weather and intense rain and runoff events can lead to an increase in the presence of HABs,” the press release warned.

If contact does occur with a suspicious bloom, Tompkins residents are instructed to rinse quickly and thoroughly. They should seek immediate medical attention if they experience “vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, skin, eye or throat irritation, allergic reactions or breathing difficulties.”

Blooms can grow in smaller areas as well — for homeowners with private ponds, The Tompkins County Soil and Water Conservation District and CSI have resources for handling HABs.

Staff and community scientists are prepared for the next blooms outbreak. With one of the most comprehensive HABs monitoring and testing programs in the state, all eyes are on Cayuga. And CSI is taking new scientific measures to address blooms in the coming months.

“Despite our disappointment that HABs have popped up in June this year, we do have two things that we’re quite excited about in 2024,” Shidemantle said. “We’re going to be investigating HAB clumps more closely.”

Clumps of benthic cyanobacteria were discovered at Cayuga Inlet during the 2022 and 2023 bloom seasons. After studying samples, CSI has trained members of their HABs Monitoring Program to identify and collect these specimens. Over 90 volunteers for this initiative are “HABs Harriers,” responsible for hunting down local blooms and packaging them for scientific inquiry.

Shidemantle and her colleagues are ecstatic about increasing surveillance involvement. They also look forward to pioneering laboratory work.

“We will be collaborating with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development

Center to find a screening tool for microcystin toxin,” Shidemantle said.

Advanced testing and screening procedures are unique to Ithaca’s watershed. While other protection agencies in the Finger Lakes region often rely on photo monitoring, CSI has established methods for observing blooms more closely. With coordinated “HABs Carrier” volunteers that transport samples to the institute’s state-certified testing lab, scientists can measure the concentration of the cyanotoxin microcystin with each new bloom. The composition of blooms is assessed for trends so that the severity of different HABs is understood.

In addition to running these volunteer programs, CSI also works with Cayuga Lake Watershed Network and Discover Cayuga Lake. Both non-profit organizations help lead HABs education and outreach for communities around Cayuga Lake.

CLWN runs a weekly newsletter that updates concerned citizens on recent algal blooms and informs them on how to handle HABs if spotted. The Network also publishes pamphlets and helpful information on how to live “lake friendly” to reduce negative impacts homeowners may inadvertently have on water quality.

Looking back at the partnership between these organizations, CLWN Executive Director Liz Kreitinger was proud of the partnership’s effect.

“Together, our organizations have been providing trusted science-based water quality monitoring, education, and stewardship programs for 25 years,” Kreitinger said.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.ithaca.com.

Kira Walter can be reached at kwalter@cornellsun.com.

Remnants of Hurricane Debby Flood Ithaca

By WILLIAM CANO, RONALD GEIGER and JACK HALBERSTADT Sun Contributors

Just four weeks after remnants of Hurricane Beryl left central New York with heavy rain and tornadoes, Tropical Depression Debby — the slowed remnants of a category one hurricane — brought Ithaca heavy thunderstorms and flash flooding.

As a tropical storm, Debby initially brought lashing winds and pounding rain along Florida’s Gulf Coast the weekend of Aug. 3, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. The storm continued to strengthen, becoming a hurricane — a tropical cyclone with sustained winds 74 mph or greater — late on the night of Aug. 4 as it began its northeastern turn into Florida’s Big Bend Region. After leaving the Gulf Coast of Florida, Debby continued its onslaught onto the coasts of the Carolinas. The cyclone moved back over open waters in the Atlantic, restrengthened and made a second landfall along the South Carolina coastline early the morning of Aug. 9 as a tropical storm — a tropical cyclone with sustained winds between 39 and 73 miles per hour. Along with heavy rainfall and storm surge,

Debby also produced four tornadoes in the Carolina region, a common consequence of tropical systems.

After its second landfall, Debby continued northward towards the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, prompting predictions of excessive rainfall in Ithaca on Aug. 9. Rain engulfed central New York early Aug. 9 and persisted through the middle of the day.

The National Weather Service at Binghamton issued a flash flood warning for the central Finger

Lakes region, including Ithaca, from 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Excessive rain exacerbated already wet conditions in Ithaca — the weather station at Game Farm Road in Ithaca saw three times its average rainfall during the first 10 days of August. Consequently, the ground was already saturated with water, and the various creeks and streams around Ithaca were running higher than usual, making the area even more prone to flooding.

Ithaca observed 2.3 inches

of rain, and several rivers and streams in and around Ithaca exceeded their flood stages — the minimum height above which water level becomes dangerous — on Aug. 9. By the next morning, all rivers returned to below their flood stage as conditions began to dry out quickly. While Ithaca’s flooding remained manageable, other regions in the Northeastern U.S. were less fortunate. The worst of the flooding on Aug. 9 occurred in north-central Pennsylvania.

In the town of Westfield, PA, numerous structures and vehicles were swept away from raging flood waters as nearly five inches of rain fell.

In addition to the flash flood risk, Debby also posed a tornado threat for Ithaca, though much less severe than the prior month’s tornado threat from Beryl. Tornadoes most commonly occur in the northeast quadrant of a tropical system, where wind orientation allows for the additional “spin” in the atmosphere necessary for tornado development. While Beryl’s northeast quadrant passed over Ithaca and much of central New York, Debby tracked eastward, thus largely avoiding Ithaca. Still, a single tornado was reported and confirmed in Ulster, NY on Aug. 9. With much of the hurricane season still ahead, Debby may be just the first of several tropical systems to impact the Atlantic and the U.S. As the peak of a projected above-normal hurricane season nears, residents along the East Coast, including Ithaca, should stay vigilant of potential impacts.

William Cano, Ronald Geiger and Jack Halberstadt can be reached at wdc63@cornell.edu, rcg233@ cornell.edu and jmh599@cornell. edu.

Gushing gorge | A rushing waterfall pours into a full riverbed at Ithaca Falls on Friday, Aug. 9.

Blue-green blooms | Some algal blooms become harmful when they grow out of control.

JACK HALBERSTADT / SUN CONTRIBUTOR

COURTESY OF THE COMMUNITY SCIENCE INSTITUTE

Kira Walter is a reporter from Te Cornell Daily Sun who worked under Te Sun’s summer fellowship at Te Ithaca Times. Tis piece was originally published in Te Ithaca Times on July 3, 2024.

Shot By Te Sun: Te UAW Strike

UAW Local 2300 has been on strike for two weeks. Here’s their current journey

By MING DeMERS Sun Photography Editor

For workers, educators and students, the Cornell experience is drastically different. With no end in sight, the future of the strike and the fall semester remains uncertain. uncertain.

Ming DeMers can be reached at mdemers@cornellsun.com

August 16 | “Fair Pay” Among the union’s chief demands are a fair wage that accounts for the cost of living adjustment.

AUGUST 23 | “National Lawyers Guild at Cornell ” Jeena Patel, Heeseung Noh and Matthew Zucker, leaders of the NLG at Cornell, join the picket line.

NINA DAVIS/SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

AUGUST 16 | “UAW on the March” The UAW rally marches up Cradit Farm Dr.

AUGUST 19 | “Fruits” Fruit takes place of the usual assortment of food options at Morrison Dining.

AUGUST 23 | “The Picket Line” For days, UAW Workers picket all over campus, including Day Hall, Morrison Dining amd A-Lot

AUGUST 19 | “No Trash Cans” On the first day of the UAW strike, trash cans were removed from Gates Hall.

BIPOC Garden Owner Files Lawsuit Against Neighbor

By DOROTHY FRANCE-MILLER Sun Senior Writer

Herbalist and owner of Black, Indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ+ safe Jane Minor Community Medicine Garden

Amanda David has filed a lawsuit against neighbor Robert Whittaker for alleged discrimination, which she has documented over the past three years.

David is alleging that Whittaker discriminated against her, her home and her business based on race, color and sex in violation of the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the New York State Human Rights Law. According to the complaint, she also “seeks relief for defendant Whittaker’s discriminatory and intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

In an interview with The Sun, Whittaker maintained that he is “totally innocent of all the allegations.”

The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office wrote to The Sun that they have investigated several reports regarding David and Whittaker. Despite making three separate arrests, the Sheriff’s Office said there is insufficient evidence to support the allegations that Whittaker’s actions “meet the standard necessary for an elevated Hate Crime charge according to law.”

David is the owner of Rootwork Herbals — a community herbalism project that fosters herbal education through the People’s Medicine School and the Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden, which works to foster connection with plants, land and medicine. Her garden hosts events and classes and provides a community herb drying shed, hoop house, classroom space, lending library of herb books and a free herbal medicine cabinet.

The Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden is operated from David’s property in the town of Caroline, located 20 minutes southeast of Ithaca. According to David, this garden aims to create a safe space for Black, brown and LGBTQIA+ individuals around the Ithaca area.

However, due to alleged continual threats and discriminatory acts from Whittaker, this garden’s status as a safe space — and as an operable business — has been threatened, according to David.

In a press release obtained by The Sun, Melanie Allen and Olivia Watkins, co-executive directors of the Black Farmer Fund wrote about the threats that David has faced.

“Amanda and her family have endured continuous racial threats and violence, underscoring the urgent need for a safe environment where Rootwork Herbals, the People’s Medicine School and [the] Jane Minor BIPOC medicine garden can continue serving as a sanctuary for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities to connect with the land, their cultural heritage and

healing practices,” wrote Allen and Watkins.

According to the 2022 USDA Census, over the last five years, the number of Black producers in the U.S. declined by four percent of its Black producers. Allen and Watkins wrote that this larger trend can be tied to the systemic oppression and discrimination that Black producers and farmers, including David, experience.

“This is a direct result of the systemic racism Black farmers have faced for generations, encompassing everything from discriminatory lending practices to community violence and intimidation,” Allen and Watkins wrote in the press release.

The Incidents

Amanda David is alleging that Whittaker vandalized her family’s car. (Amanda David)

Whittaker has been charged twice with criminal harassment in the second degree for verbal harassment, fourth-degree criminal mischief and violating an order of protection by shooting her chicken coop light with a BB gun.

In addition, David alleges Whittaker has vandalized her son’s car, spray painted her fence, threateningly shot a BB gun in the air during a teen gardening session, removed sections of her fence and threatened to hit her son with a stick, among other offenses.

There were no witnesses for many of these incidents, and Whittaker has denied these claims when asked by the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Officers and The Sun.

Despite consistent police reports and interactions over a span of three years and measures such as an order of protection — a court order requiring Whittaker not to speak to or interact with David — Whittaker has allegedly continued to engage with David and her family.

While David was granted an order of protection with a surrender of firearms, she says it has been ignored on numerous occasions by Whittaker. Whittaker allegedly continued to verbally harass and insult David and her family, which she recorded on her phone and presented to the police.

However, due to Whittaker’s not saying David’s name in the videos presented, this potential violation of the order of protection was invalidated by the police due to a “lack of sufficient evidence.”

“That’s not considered a violation of the order of protection even though he’s not supposed to talk to me — because he’s not saying my name, he’s just calling me an ‘f*cking handout’ repeatedly whenever I’m outside,” David said.

Whittaker denied this allegation of harassment when speaking to The Sun.

In a police report on a later dispute, Whittaker maintained that he no longer communicates with David in accordance with the order of protection.

Rather than acknowledging incidents in the context of the order of protection and previous harassment by Whittaker, David feels that the local authorities are continually dismissing her concerns. While

David presents the perspective that Whittaker’s harassment is racially charged, Whittaker maintains this is untrue.

“This is nothing to do with race or color, it’s just about respect for neighbors,” Whittaker told The Sun. “If she would be quiet and leave me alone, I would be quiet and leave her alone.”

Whittaker expressed being disturbed by the David’s loud music, bright farm lights and crowds attracted by their business. Additionally, he expressed distress for her pastures and chicken coops being so close to his property.

“I think we do need some zoning to keep people from putting a goat and chicken farm on an acre of land right between two residential houses,” Whittaker said. “It’s within 250 feet of houses on both sides.”

The Lawsuit

David and her family are seeking relocation from their home of several years and filing a federal housing discrimination suit against Whittaker.

“It’s just about trying to recoup some of the expenses because this is not only my home, but it’s also my place of business,” David said.

The conclusions of the lawsuit are yet to be pronounced, as the court proceedings have not yet begun.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

Dorothy France-Miller can be reached at dfrancemiller@cornellsun.com.

Dorothy France-Miller is a reporter from The Cornell Daily Sun who worked under The Sun’s summer fellowship at The Ithaca Times. This piece was originally published in The Ithaca Times.

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name. (Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sudoku)

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Niko! by Priya Malla ’21

Johnny Woodruff by Travis Dandro

Patrick Dai is Sentenced to 21 Months in Federal Prison for Posting Antisemetic Threats Online

By KATE SANDERS Sun News Editor

Patrick Dai ’24, formerly a junior at Cornell, has been sentenced on Monday, Aug. 12, to 21 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release after accepting a plea deal for the felony charge of posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications.

Dai’s sentence was reduced from the calculated guideline of 27-33 months, which had been increased because the court found a hate crime motivation due to the specific targeting of Jewish students and “substantial disruption” that resulted from Dai’s threats. However, this sentence was lowered because of a January autism diagnosis, which his lawyer found significant to the case.

Dai’s attorney, Lisa Peebles, plans to file an appeal regarding his sen-

tencing, challenging both the hate crime and disruption findings.

Chief United States District Judge Brenda Sannes, who presided over the case, recommended Dai’s placement in a prison that was suitable for his mental health conditions and near his family in Pittsford, New York, whom Sannes described as Dai’s “support network.”

When Dai spoke at the sentencing at the Northern District of New York courthouse, his voice was shaky and unclear as he cried, and the court asked him to repeat himself and speak slower as he expressed his regret.

“It’s all my fault,” Dai said.

Peebles, interpreting Dai’s remarks for the court, explained that Dai did not feel like he deserved leniency from the court and was apologetic. She noted that Dai was “the most contrite person” she had ever represented.

Last October, Dai posted several threats to Jewish students on Greekrank, an anonymous discussion forum. One post threatened a mass shooting at 104West!, which houses Cornell’s Center for Jewish Living and kosher dining hall. Not long after his threatening posts, Dai apologized on the forum.

Peebles maintained Dai intended to demonstrate that Hamas is evil rather than to genuinely threaten Cornell’s Jewish community.

In April, Dai accepted a plea deal from the prosecution, which waived the right to an indictment trial. Dai has been in jail for nearly 10 months.

Dai, who was 21 when he posted the threats, was a computer science major in the College of Engineering. He is from Pittsford, a suburb of Rochester. The court noted that Dai had struggled with mental health issues, including anxiety, depression

and suicidal ideation in addition to his autism diagnosis.

In the hours after Dai’s threats in October, Molly Goldstein ’24, president of the Center for Jewish Living at the time, said residents of CJL felt “genuine fear” for their safety. Goldstein said many parents of residents, worried about violent threats, traveled to Ithaca to pick up their children.

In a statement released in October, former Cornell president Martha Pollack called Dai’s threats “horrendous” and “absolutely intolerable.”

“The virulence and destructiveness of antisemitism is real and deeply impacting our Jewish students, faculty and staff, as well as the entire Cornell community,” Pollack wrote.

Kate Sanders can be reached at ksanders@ cornellsun.com.

Wave of Dispensary Openings Sweeps Across Tompkins County

By KATE SANDERS Sun News Editor

Three new dispensaries are set to open soon in and around Ithaca, including Collegetown’s first dispensary. These additions will bring the total number of dispensaries in Tompkins County to six, all of which opened in the last 18 months.

Opening soon are The Highly Connected on Franklin Street, Collegetown Dispensary on Dryden Road in the City of Ithaca and Upstate Haze on Dryden Road in the town of Dryden. All three are slated to open their doors to customers in the next three months.

Collegetown Dispensary

The New York Office of Cannabis Management’s Proximity Protected Locations for Adult-Use Retail Dispensaries & Registered Organizations

map indicates an active license for an adult-use retail location at 105 Dryden Road, the former Subway location in Collegetown. According to a certificate of assumed name, this establishment will be named Collegetown Dispensary.

Rachel Mitchell, the general manager of Collegetown Dispensary, said she is planning to open the store in late August, which would coincide with the start of Cornell’s academic year.

She said the location of the dispensary would set it apart from others in the area.

“Being in Collegetown and that being such a pivotal area, being near the campus, I think that will be good,” Mitchell said. “The neighborhood really speaks for itself.”

Mitchell said through the dispensary she wants to emphasize an “educational” component so that customers gain knowledge about how the products will affect their bodies.

“There’s just so much out there in the cannabis space,” Mitchell said. “And there’s so much mis-

information that we’ve all known our whole life about it because it’s been an illegal product, [and] it hasn’t been studied.”

Mitchell declined to comment on the identities of the owners of Collegetown Dispensary but said it would be a majority woman-owned business, a rarity in the male-dominated cannabis industry.

Upstate Haze

James Steiner Jr. and Riley Rynone are in the process of opening a dispensary called Upstate Haze on 1280 Dryden Rd., near the Finger Lakes Library System. Upstate Haze hopes to open for business before the end of October.

Upstate Haze has a microbusiness license, which authorizes the cultivation, processing, distribution, retail sale and delivery of the licensee’s own cannabis products. With this license, the business will grow its own cannabis at an off-site farm near the dispensary. Steiner and Rynone said they take pride in what will be the business’s deep connection to the Finger Lakes region since all aspects of the business — from growing to

selling — will take place locally.

“We’re trying to be Ithaca’s dispensary,” Rynone said. “Out of all the rest of them, this is the one that’s gonna have the roots down, that’s going to be here. We’re going to be a staple.”

Steiner and Rynone also said they wanted the dispensary to serve as a community space and hope to use their adjacent outdoor space to hold events. This way, they aim to combat the stigma and hesitance that surrounds cannabis.

“It would be awesome to bring the community together around cannabis instead of having everyone feel like they need to hide it or keep it away from people,” Steiner said.

Steiner suggested inviting local bands or comedians to their outdoor space or holding events like trivia night or open mics, similar to the events at many Ithaca bars.

The Highly Connected

Wendy Matesanz and her husband JP Toro are opening a dispensary called The Highly Connected at 423 Franklin St. this month. The location previously housed The Piggery butcher shop.

Matesanz said she and her husband are well known in the cannabis industry through their renowned Toro Glass business that sells products like pipes and other cannabis-related accessories.

She added that through their ties in the industry, they are “highly connected” to local growers, allowing their dispensary to have exclusive and high-quality cannabis which Matesanz said will help them stand out. The dispensary will have limited edition Toro Glass and curated products from Toro and the company’s team according to its website.

“People want to utilize our location as a kind of a hub for some of their best of the best, or as a place to release new products because we have such a large outreach through Toro Glass,” Matesanz said.

The Highly Connected was approved for a Conditional AdultUse Retail Dispensary license

from the OCM in July 2023, but Matesanz said opening the store was held up for months due to litigation against OCM regarding the office’s criteria for CAURD licenses. The lawsuit halted 400 CAURD licensees from opening until a settlement was reached and approved by a judge in December 2023.

Matesanz said she is excited about the dispensary’s location across the street from the Ithaca Farmers Market, which sees thousands of people every weekend during peak season. Improvements to the waterfront and an influx of apartment buildings in the area, Matesanz said, make her believe the location will be “an excellent spot to be long term.”

Other Active and Pending Licenses

According to the OCM map, a medical dispensary license held by Citiva Medical LLC is active, but its stated location on West Buffalo Street is closed. Additionally, a license for an adult-use microbusiness is active for a location on Cherry Street, but the lot is empty. Four additional adult-use retail licenses have been submitted and are pending for locations in Newfield, Ulysses, Danby and the town of Ithaca, bringing the possible number of dispensaries in the county to 11.

OCM does not have a limit on the number of dispensaries an area can have past minimum distance requirements between stores. The office holds the primary role in reviewing and issuing licenses and regulates that there must be at least 1,000 feet between adultuse cannabis retail dispensaries in municipalities with a population of 20,000 people or more and 2,000 feet for municipalities with less than 20,000 people.

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun.com.

High hopes | Highly Connected is one of three dispensaries set to open in and around Ithaca.

MARTIN / THE ITHACA VOICE

Kate Sanders is a reporter from The Cornell Daily Sun who worked under The Sun’s summer fellowship at The Ithaca Voice. This piece was originally published in The Ithaca Voice.

By Kira Walter Sun Lifestyle Editor

NBeautifying Dorms Locally: How To Save On Room Decor Right In Town

ew dorm, new you? Perhaps this is the semester to claim your living space by taking interior design to the next level.

As students move into notoriously bland on-campus spaces, a room with some character is destined to boost productivity and alleviate homesickness this fall season. Though it’s easy to hit up strip mall chains, some of Ithaca’s best decor deals await newcomers at locally-owned businesses.

From ReUse to Home Green Home, affordable posters, bedding, and lights are a downtown hike or quick bus trip from campus.

Here’s how to go the extra mile sprucing up your decorations without the extra mile commute…

ReUse

One of the greatest resources available to IC & Cornell residents is Finger Lakes ReUse. This non-profit turns Friday through Wednesday drop-off donations into shopping treasures at prices that save your wallet some grief.

At 214 Elmira Road, Ithaca ReUse Center offers furniture, electronics, building materials, paintings and other household goods a 15-minute walk from the Commons. The ReUse MegaCenter up at 2255 North Triphammer Road offers a similar variety of decorative items including clothing and an impressive book display.

Since opening in 2007, ReUse has had profound benefits for the community, increasing accessibility to home renovation and employment. When asked about ReUse’s impact in comparison to big corporations like Kohls & Target, long-time manager Sarah Mirabile spoke to the business’s mission.

“It’s about getting materials to people that need them as opposed to mass production,” she said. “We use more of a bottom-up approach.”

By

A bottom-up approach is ever the more apparent in unique programs that promote community engagement and help repurpose old purchases. In addition to shopping here, students can attend the Fixers Collective from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, where assistance with fixing home appliances is available. The ReSET job training program teaches potential employees technology and customer service skills on a paid basis while new Deconstruction services replace demolition projects.

Pastimes

Finger Lakes ReUse isn’t the only local store redistributing home decor donations this season. Just beyond the doors to Dewitt Mall, Pastimes is an antique shop and Ithaca staple offering decorative items unavailable anywhere else.

Opened in the 1970’s, vintage posters and framed art are only part of interior design inventory at this location. Owner Rebecca Stocking has traveled to state auctions and estate sales expanding the Pastimes collection for decades now.

“You’re not going to see that a friend got something here and come in to get it too,” she told the Times.

“Everything here is one of a kind.”

If originality is the aim with defining your dorm, Pastimes’s postcards are a fantastic way to make your walls shine. Organized by city and country, the all-encompassing postcard selection may even include your hometown.

Handwork & American Crafts

While some Pastimes products span the globe, Ithaca-related ephemera can provide an aesthetic local touch to your room this semester. For killer home decor pieces, Handwork or American Crafts can turn home into an on-campus masterpiece.

At 102 West State Street, Handwork is Ithaca’s Artisan Cooperative, offering pottery, paintings, and photography that

promise to transform any lackluster space into an artistic wonder. Candles, utensils, and gorgeous glass frames ethically made by local artists add flavor to any dorm room lifestyle.

Co-op member Betsy Gram explained how Handwork products can help newcomers discover the beauty of Ithaca.

“A lot of the artists here tap into what is popular locally. Especially drawing inspiration from the natural environment,” she said. “A lot of different people can find their personal taste here.”

Up the block at 158 East State Street, American Crafts by Robbie Dein sells artwork at a broader scale, importing inventory from over 55 stores in the U.S. Dein moved to Ithaca in the 70’s after graduating from Purdue and opened People’s Pottery, selling his own work for three years. Since then, he began buying work from hundreds of professional nation-wide crafts, gaining a reputation as one of the finest ‘HandMade in America’ specialty stores.

Now, American Crafts offers a variety of home decorations from eclectic clocks, coasters, mirrors, and lighting. Staff members are well informed in regards to each piece and are highly experienced at recommending items for each diverging price range.

Sunny Days & Loose Threads

For fans of artistic decor, commons classics Sunny Days or Loose Threads might also be worthy stops in your interior design haul. Sunny Days at 171 East Green Street is packed with Ithaca merch from pillows to magnets and so much more. The location is decked out with Finger Lakes wall art, wine glasses, and a gorgeous array of dreamcatchers. A purchase for your space here might help ward off academic nightmares.

Meanwhile, Loose Threads across the street is equipped with jewelry and an awesome set of imported

posters. A “one dollar” bin at the door is packed with discount clothing items and other retail gems. The store’s three for one dollar candle deal is a goldmine for anyone who want some extra rustic warmth.

While discussing how students can save at Loose Threads, owner Billy Pargh recalled his college experience. In terms of decor, he always kept something familiar nearby.

“It’s nice just feeling close to something you recognize,” he said.

Home Green Home

And at Home Green Home, adding familiarity to a dorm becomes an easy task. Two doors down from Loose Threads, this store specializes in green living furnishings and goods. An emphasis on curating a lifestyle that benefits the Earth contributes to the zen atmosphere of this business.

Walking through Home Green’s commons location, natural mattresses and furniture are made from organic cotton, hemp, and linen. These materials support farmers and better ecosystems, also used to create luxurious Home Green towels. Meditation supplies and yoga

gear are available throughout the space while books on sustainable cooking and environmental education line Home Green shelves.

Moving to the second floor, incense, candles, and soaps cover wooden surfaces while posters and small figurines contain images of peace. As dorms become hectic with impending studies, a little Home Green ambiance on-campus may alleviate some stress.

Moving isn’t always a smooth transition and it takes a long time for a space to become home. But a little design help from local decor depots can ease help ease the process.

Invested businesses nearby remind students that they aren’t alone in their decoration plights annually.

At Reuse, Mirabile reiterated this. “We care about people,” she said. “We want you to find things and have a good time. Enjoy the search!”

Kira Walter is a lifestyle editor at the Cornell Daily Sun and was a Daily Sun Summer Fellow at The Ithaca Times. Lifestyle editors can be reached at style@cornellsun.com.

Lifestyle Editor Weekly Report: Navigating Eateries During a Strike

Thirteen out of 33 official on-campus eateries are open, operating on limited hours. Many cafes, such as Mattin’s, are not making hot food to-order. Per an email sent to all members of the Cornell community on Monday from Campus Life, dining halls are serving grab-and-go meals that can be purchased with meal swipes for lunch while operating per usual with a limited menu for breakfast and dinner. Campus Life recommends that students refer to the Cornell Dining Now site for up-to-date information on eateries that are open. Note that while these places are open, waiting

times are longer than usual, as more students are flocking to the same spaces compared to usual. Hours can be found on the Cornell Dining Now website. Open cafes are Atrium, Cafe Jennie, College of Veterinary Medicine and Mattins. Trillium is also open.

Bear Necessities is the only campus convenience store open, closing at 10 p.m. instead of the usual 2 a.m.

The following dining halls are open: Becker House, Jansen’s at Hans Bethe House, Keeton House, Rose House, Okenshields, Morrison and North Star.

Regarding eateries on-campus not affiliated with Cornell Dining, Temple of Zeus is open with a limited menu. Additionally, Louie’s Lunch food truck on Thurston Ave is operating on the same schedule as before. Off-

campus food options can be pricey.

Uber One for Students is free for four weeks and $4.99 per month afterwards, providing $0 delivery fee on eligible food and groceries as well as discounts on Uber Eats and Rides.

7-Eleven, located in Collegetown, has an app that allows you to earn points, deals and freebies. Paris Baguette, located in the Commons, has an app with rewards for free and discounted drinks and foods. Aldi and Walmart are the cheapest grocery stores in the Ithaca area. Aldi can be accessed via TCAT’s Route 13 and Walmart can be accessed via TCAT’s Route 15 (which is also accessible by Route 32). Lastly, college students can apply for SNAP/EBT benefits in NY state by visiting the NY state benefits website

Kira Walter and Daniela Rojas Sun Lifestyle Editors

Kira Walter and Daniela Rojas are the lifestyle editors. They can be reached at style@ cornellsun.com.

Cards from Handwork, the $1 bin at Loose Threads, or Pastimes postcards & pics are great places to start spicing up your dorm room on budget.

KIRA WALTER / SUN LIFESTYLE EDITOR

Students line up at Cafe Jennie’s for the late afternoon lunch rush on the first day of classes on Aug. 26, 2024.

DANIELA ROJAS / SUN LIFESTYLE EDITOR

By SYDNEY LEVINTON Arts & Culture Editor

&

Eagles: ‘One of These Nights’

No classic rock playlist is complete without an Eagles song. Whether it’s “Witchy Woman” from their debut album Eagles, “The Best of My Love” off On the Border , or the iconic title track “Hotel California,” the Eagles have made it evident that they can do just about any type of rock. However, despite the success of these songs, I’d argue that this doesn’t get any clearer than in their 1975 record One of These Nights , where they achieve the lofty, delicate balance that defines country-rock. This week, I decided to dive into One of These Nights to investigate how they were able to pull off this elusive genre.

Starting the album out with a bang is “One of These Nights,” which includes a funky intro and shiver-inducing harmonies during the chorus, topped off with percussive punctuation of the title. This song was actually intended to be a step away from the Eagles’s signature country-rock sound: “We like to be a nice little country-rock band from Los Angeles…about half the time,” Don Henley told Rolling Stone. “We wanted to get away from the ballad syndrome with ‘One of These Nights.’” Now you may be wondering — if this song was a purposeful shift away from country-rock, how could it possibly contribute to the country-rock sound of the album? It’s a valid point, but I posit that

this shift was actually necessary to create this sound; by making a “nasty track with pretty vocals” infused with R&B, as Glenn Frey puts it, the Eagles really rounded out the rock component of the album, ultimately striking that ideal balance of rock to country.

“Too Many Hands” is thematically unique; in the words of its writer Randy Meisner, “it’s about destroying our Mother Earth and what I don’t like about destroying it.” While it is a true rock and roll track, the twangy “Too Many Hands” displays indisputable country influences. Likewise, “Hollywood Waltz” is a southern drawl turned into a song. Focused on a woman looking for love after years of failed relationships, this slower track epitomizes the country-rock sound, combining soft rock with country via Bernie Leadon’s mandolin and classic Eagles harmonies.

“Journey of the Sorcerer” is a six-and-a-half minute long instrumental track in which banjo meets orchestra. Although it’s definitely different from the other songs on the album, it shares a familiar sound while emphasizing these new instruments. “Journey of the Sorcerer” ebbs and flows, and sounds like several different songs merged together. Regardless of the lack of words, the instrumentals create a sense of continuity in terms of the narrative being spun with the lyrics of the other songs and serve as a break of sorts — a chance for the listener to

Solar Flare: Back to School

A Playlist for a New Semester

By Sydney Levinton Arts and Culture Editor

You didn’t think we’d go back to school without preparing a back to school playlist, did you? Here are nine songs that aim to encapsulate the range of emotions returning to school stirs up in many of us.

1. Briston Maroney: Sunburn Fades

2. Semisonic: Closing Time

3. John Sebastian: Welcome Back

4. Valley: I Haven’t Seen You In Forever

5. Cage The Elephant: Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked

6. Elton John: Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me

7. Noah Kahan: Homesick

8. Earth, Wind & Fire: September 9. Kacey Musgraves: Golden Hour

catch their breath before moving on to “Lyin’ Eyes.” This track is about a young girl marrying an old man for money instead of love and eventually cheating on him. The chorus is her husband’s perspective upon his discovery of her infidelity: “You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes / And your smile is a thin disguise / I thought by now you’d realize / There ain’t no way to hide your lyin’ eyes,” Frey sings. Yet another example of the Eagles doing what the Eagles do best and harmonizing, this track also has that twang that gives their soft rock style its tinge of country.

Next is “Take It to the Limit,” one of my favorites from this album. Told from the point of view of someone who has spent their life on the move and is thinking about what could have been, this is one of the more lyrically rich songs on One of These Nights . Meisner is on lead vocals here, and this is one of his biggest moments as an Eagle; as he said, “I didn’t get to shine too often with the Eagles but One of These Nights turned out to be a big album for me,” and “Take It to the Limit” was his pièce de résistance.

The key to “Visions” is Don Felder, who came through both with lead vocals and lead guitar. It’s a more upbeat song than we’ve seen so far on this album and is another masterclass in bluesy, country-charged rock. Upon my first listen, it almost sounded like something from the Sanford Townsend Band (see: “Smoke from a Distant Fire”). “After

the Thrill Is Gone,” influenced by B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone,” features some exceptional guitar and the combined vocal power of Frey and Henley. According to Henley, the goal of the song was to “explore the aftermath [of King’s “The Thrill Is Gone”]. We know that the thrill is gone — so, now what?”

One of These Nights comes to a conclusion with “I Wish You Peace” — the one place the album wavers. This serene track doesn’t quite seem to fit in with the rest of the album, but I do enjoy it nonetheless. Co-written by Leadon and his girlfriend at the time — Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis — “I Wish You Peace” was later denounced by Henley, who called it “smarmy cocktail music and not something the Eagles are proud of,” but they included it in the album “as a gesture to keep the band together.” This deviation aside, as a whole, One of These Nights is a grand exhibition of country-rock excellence, made possible by the Eagles’s ability to harmonize like their lives depended on it and their creative use of their instruments.

Test Spins is a weekly throwback column reviewing and recommending classic and underrated albums from the past. It runs every Friday.

Sydney Levinton is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at slevinton@cornellsun.com.

Brat Politik

By ERIC HAN Arts & Culture Editor

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Brat Summer intersected with a period of serious political anxiety in the United States. The prolific lime green movement, a response to the cocaine-starved party-never-stops aesthetic of Charli XCX’s Brat, rode the wave of a rising impulse in our generation to party, cry and party again, such that the whole world scrambled to embody ‘brat’ itself. In the aftermath of a brutal presidential debate which raised existential fears over our generation’s future (to defeat fascism, to save our climate), it seemed that the only remaining option was to indulge ourselves at the withering end of prosperity.

It appeared a blessing, then, that the Democratic party would replace Joe Biden with a brat candidate — a progressive woman that would both beat Donald Trump and heed a younger generation. But we should be wary, I think, of the way in which liberal politicians leveraged the trending term to resituate themselves in the two-party system.

TikTok’s Etymology Nerd argues that ‘brat’ is a self-contained concept: “You can only gesture at what ‘brat’ really is by talking about other related concepts. … ‘Brat’ is something more, something ineffable that can’t really be captured with a cohesive definition.” It doesn’t help that the album constantly defies itself thematically — from the indifferent egoism of “360” (“I don’t f*cking care what you think”) to the vulnerable and doubt-filled “So I,” a heartbreaking tribute to late hyperpop artist SOPHIE. ‘Brat’ is multidimensional — “me, my flaws, my f*ck ups, my ego all rolled into one,” says Charli. It is the character of this contradiction itself that gives ‘brat’ meaning in context. Though, a word defined by contradiction is highly susceptible to change by misinterpretation.

When Charli XCX declared outright, “kamala IS brat,” we saw the emergence of a massively successful cultural-political symbiosis. The presumptive nomination of Kamala Harris became the biggest boon for the word’s usage in internet discourse since the album’s release. By

some metrics, Brat Summer saved the Harris-Walz campaign millions of dollars worth of media exposure in a frenzy that even Charli did not expect. One tweet alone was both able to reinvigorate a fad and imbue it with explicitly political meaning.

In that ‘brat’ is defined by proximity to other cultural symbols, liberal politicians have invited themselves into proximity. Chuck Schumer is brat. Barack Obama is brat. And somehow, they appear safe from the ridicule that politicians normally face by relating themselves to emerging cultural trends (i.e. “Pokémon Go to the polls”). This damned ‘brat’ to even greater ambiguity, to a point of almost entirely void meaning. What does Schumer have to do with “365” (“Wanna go real wild when I’m bumpin’ that // Meet me in the bathroom if you’re bumpin’ that)?

Charli stands by her endorsement of Harris in a subtle effort “to prevent democracy from failing forever.” This is the essential narrative of the Harris-Walz campaign: Trump is a serious threat to American democracy, and a second Trump term risks a hostile takeover permitted by the July Supreme Court ruling and mapped by Project 2025. Leftists will hesitantly remind themselves of the omnipresent question they face this election cycle: is it harmful to criticize a liberal Harris while her opponent threatens a fascist uprising? It’s the same question that undermines the uncommitted movement for Palestine and already-trivialized pleas for genuine systemic change — an America that does not profit from war, an America that is not bought by corporate interest — in an increasingly hostile setting for the political establishment. ‘Brat’ has come to validate a political candidate that promises to “ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” It turned Bushwick socialites into cultural proponents of a neoliberal agenda. Is imperialism brat?

Continue reading at www.cornellsun.com

UAW President Shawn Fain Backs the Historic Cornell Strike at DNC

By MATTHEW KIVIAT

Sun News Editor

After a long day of picketing, mobilization and action from University workers during move-in, Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, spoke at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 19, and applauded the ongoing strike at Cornell.

“The American working class is in a fight for our lives, and if you don’t believe me, just last night, blue collar workers — UAW members — at Cornell University had to walk out on strike for a better life because they’re fighting corporate greed,” Fain said. “Our only hope is to attack corporate greed head on.”

Fain’s high-profile rebuke of Cornell’s administration came before an audience of top Democrats, includ-

ing Vice President Kamala Harris, Governor Tim Walz and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

A strike began on Sunday night for over 1,000 Cornell food service workers, mechanics, custodians and other University employees.

The picketing comes after the University and UAW Local 2300 — the union representing around 1,200 Cornell employees — failed to reach an agreement to avert the move-in week strike by the union’s Sunday night deadline.

UAW Local 2300’s demands include improvements in workplace safety, wage increases consistent with increases in the cost of living and free parking.

Matthew Kiviat can be reached at mkiviat@ cornellsun.com.

Barron Trump Will Attend University in New York State, Donald Trump Says

By

Barron Trump, the youngest child of the former president, is set to attend college in New York State this fall.

Donald Trump said in an interview with the New York Post on Tuesday, Aug. 20, that an announcement of Barron’s college decision will come out shortly.

Former president Trump also said that his son would attend a “very good” college in New York State and that Barron was interested in politics. According to the most recent rankings from US News and World Report, Cornell tied with Columbia as the best college in the state and ranks in the top 25 universities nationally in subjects relating to politics.

Barron Trump, at time of publication, does not appear in the student directories of Cornell, Columbia and New York University. Registered firstyear students at Cornell are typically listed.

When asked if his son would attend

Bird-Bill: Ithaca Common Council to

Consider BirdFriendly Building Legislation

By KATE SANDERS

Kate Sanders is a reporter from the Cornell Daily Sun who worked under The Sun’s summer fellowship at The Ithaca Voice. This piece was originally published in The Ithaca Voice.

The Ithaca Common Council will discuss a new piece of proposed environmental legislation that aims to protect birds from untimely deaths.

The council’s proposed ordinance, sponsored by Fourth Ward Alderperson Patrick Kuehl ’24 (D- Fourth Ward), would require all new buildings to meet the standard set by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leed rating system to receive the Reducing Bird Collisions Credit. The credit outlines requirements for the use of predominantly bird-friendly materials, particularly in the lower floors of buildings.

The proposed legislation — which Kuehl dubbed the “bird bill” — would specifically require that all new buildings applying for a permit present documentation that the building meets the outlined bird-friendly design standards.

The proposed bird bill is similar to New York City’s Local Law 15 of 2020, which was passed in December 2019. If legislation based on Kuehl’s proposal is passed, Ithaca would join at least 20 U.S. cities and municipalities that have bird-friendly laws on the books. Kuehl is consulting with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to assist with the legislation.

birds can see something, they’re less likely to fly into it.”

According to the American Bird Conservancy, some bird-friendly alternatives to traditional glass include angled glass, ultraviolet-patterned glass and opaque glass. Alternatively, developers can add netting, screens, cords or decals to make a window more bird-friendly.

While it is challenging to collect precise data on bird strikes, Vinson said bird strikes happened observably less often at the Lab of Ornithology after the installation of black paracord Acopian BirdSavers.

“It was built with a 90 percent glass facade in the middle of the forest, and for years it was having tons of collisions,” Vinson said. “They put up a pretty cheap paracord solution, … and this wound up reducing collisions dramatically.”

Miyoko Chu, the senior director of communications for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, said many of these bird-friendly options are not only inexpensive but also aesthetically pleasing. After installing the BirdSavers outside the windows of the Lab of Ornithology, Chu said the lab had not received any complaints about their appearance.

“I think it’s so heartening that [when] people … see [the BirdSavers], I think they feel inspired that this was an action that was taken to help birds,” Chu said.

NYU this fall, the former president smiled and said he would not confirm which college his son had chosen until an official announcement was issued, Fox News reported on Tuesday.

Former president Trump himself attended an Ivy League university, having graduated from The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance in 1968. He also attended Fordham University, in New York City, as an undergraduate before trans-

Matthew Kiviat can be reached at mkiviat@ cornellsun.com.

At the July 17 Common Council meeting, Kuehl announced plans to hold a public forum to hear community feedback, of which Kuehl said he has heard a “surprising” amount since introducing the legislative proposal to the Common Council. The forum took place at 3 p.m. on July 27 at the Kendal at Ithaca.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, human activity has contributed to the decline of many avian species. One major cause of bird death is colliding with building glass, which claims the lives of over 350 million birds each year.

A 2019 study conducted by the Lab of Ornithology found that the bird population in the U.S. and Canada had decreased by three billion birds, or by nearly 30 percent.

To address this stark decline, researchers have turned to bird-friendly building materials, which aim to reduce the number of window strikes.

“Birds can’t really perceive glass. They either see the reflections or they see through it, and as a result, they fly into it,” said Adam Vinson ’25, who works in the Lab of Ornithology. “So, if you make it so that

In June 2019, the Ithaca Common Council passed the Ithaca Green New Deal, a sweeping commitment to sustainability, carbon neutrality and climate justice. This May, the Common Council adopted the Justice50 framework, which seeks to aid communities disproportionately affected by climate change.

To Kuehl, this proposal is a continuation of Ithaca’s work to be more environmentally friendly.

“I think with sustainability there also needs to be an emphasis on conservation, and part of conservation is thinking about how we build more sustainable built environments for things that are not human,” Kuehl said.

Kuehl, Chu and Vinson expressed optimism that the proposal would receive the necessary support from the Common Council and the Ithaca community, citing the city’s enthusiasm for sustainability and appreciation for birds.

“Birds are such a special part of the character and beauty of Ithaca, and so many people in our community just love birds,” Chu said. “It would be a real point of pride if Ithaca were a bird-friendly city.”

MATTHEW KIVIAT Sun News Editor

NY-Bound Barron | Barron Trump is set to go to college in New York this fall.

SCOTT MCINTYRE / THE NEW YORK TIMES

Buildings vs. Birds | The Ithaca Common Council is considering legislating bird-friendly material standards for new buildings.

ISABELLE JUNG / SUN GRAPHICS EDITOR

Kate Sanders can be reached at ksanders@ cornellsun.com.

Sun News Editor

CORNELLIAN SUMMER OLYMPIANS

Grady ’19 Rows to Gold in Men’s Four PARIS 2024

By JANE MCNALLY Sun Sports Editor

For the first time since 1992, a Cornellian has been awarded a gold medal at the Summer Olympics.

Pedro Pablo Morales Jr. J.D. ’94, a swimmer, did it then. Michael Grady ’19 is this year’s gold medal winner, a member of the United States men’s four rowing team, which crossed the finish line in five minutes and 49.03 seconds on Aug. 1 in Paris.

The medal not only breaks a 32-year gold medal drought for Cornellians at the Summer Olympics, but also a 64-year gold medal drought for the U.S. men’s four rowing team. Grady and his fellow oarsmen — Nick Mead, Justin Best and Liam Corrigan — beat out New Zealand and Great Britain.

Grady, who was a member of the heavyweight rowing team at Cornell, joins a highly touted club of Cornellian rowers to medal at any Olympic Games. Grady’s gold is only the eighth medal of any Cornell rower, dating back to 1964.

Before Grady, the Big Red’s most recent rowing medal was a bronze won by Stephanie H. Maxwell-Pierson ’86 in 1992. The last gold? William Arthur Stowe ’62 at the 1964 games, the only other gold medal in rowing by a Cornellian.

The U.S. led from start to finish, but felt New Zealand at its heels in the final 500 meters of the race, which spans 2,000 meters. Prior to Thursday’s race, two heats took place to determine the final field. Both the U.S. and New Zealand won their respective heats, with New Zealand finishing slightly faster.

It was a veteran team, complete with two other Ivy League graduates. Three years ago, Grady helped the U.S. men’s four rowing team finish in fifth in Tokyo. At the

same games, Mead (a Princeton graduate), Best (a Drexel graduate) and Corrigan (a Harvard graduate) were a part of the eighth-place finishing U.S. men’s eight rowing team.

The foursome has rowed together for two full years leading up to the coveted race in Paris. Because U.S. rowing typically assigns boats via yearly selections and races, sticking together long term is rare, but an invaluable chance to build chemistry.

In September 2023, the men rowed to silver at the 2023

world championships, an impressive feat but one that led them eager for more.

Beating out New Zealand by just 0.85 seconds, Grady and company took care of their unfinished business.

After making history for both Cornell and U.S. rowing, Grady will return home to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with new hardware and a story to tell for years to come.

Jane McNally can be reached at jmcnally@cornellsun.com.

Diaz ’10 Designs Leotards For Women’s Gymnastics Team

By

As the USA women’s gymnastics team dons the stripes and stars at the 2024 Summer Olympics, one Cornell alum is helping them sparkle.

Jeanne Diaz ’10 designed the uniforms the gymnasts are competing in in Paris, France, incorporating more than 47,000 Swarovski crystals across each athlete’s eight-leotard set.

A College of Human Ecology alum, Diaz is now the design director at Elite Sportswear, the official outfitter for Team USA Gymnastics since 2000. They have designed and manufactured the leotards for the last six Olympics. In addition to the United States, GK Elite has outfitted other nations in the past, including the Netherlands, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.

Though the games began in late July, the design and production process for the leotards started long before 2024.

“We start the ideation process two years in advance,” Diaz said. “We start with an athlete survey and just get an idea of what they’re wanting to see in their leotards.”

The creative team also considers the culture and location of where the games will take place. This year’s games are in Paris — a city that last hosted the Olympics a century ago, in 1924.

“My team went ahead and created mood boards,” Diaz said. “Our goal was to merge Parisian couture, Parisian art [and Parisian] architecture and fuse that with iconic Americana — two things that are pretty different.”

Diaz said that it can be challenging to combine aspects of two separate cultures into one design.

“How do we merge those two things into a collection that is really cohesive and beautiful?”

Diaz said. “That’s really why it takes two years to make sure that this collection we’re putting out there is a really strong one because it’s the world’s biggest stage. And especially this Olympics because of Simone Biles, all eyes are going to be on gymnastics.”

The International Gymnastics Federation does have a few requirements designers must abide by, the primary one being that the country mark — which must measure at least 30 square centimeters — be included in the design. Though no color requirement exists, the USA leotards typically are red, white and blue.

“[The leotards] don’t have to be patriotic or red, white and blue colors for Team USA, but it is super important for the team and also for the spectators,” Diaz said. “It’s something that has not always been a priority historically when you look back at previous Olympics, but it has become a very big priority, and we are happy to oblige that. We love the fact that you can look out onto the floor and not see the country mark but know exactly who Team USA is.”

The design team also evaluates how their designs might influence judging.

“We think about making sure we’re not highlighting areas that could show [a] break in form,” Diaz said. “For example, [we avoid] running straight line sleeve stripes underneath the inseam of the sleeve, because on uneven bars, if there’s a form break at all on the arms,

that stripe on the sleeve will help highlight that, so we don’t want to do that.”

Aside from requirements and concerns about judging, Diaz and her team primarily use the athlete survey to gather athlete preferences as the baseline of designs.

“Ultimately, we always want to be the athlete’s first choice,” Diaz said. “We started with a survey asking a variety of questions from neckline to fabric choice to color choice [to] crystal usage.”

GK Elite uses multiple types of fabrics and materials in their leotards.

“We source fabrics that meet our stringent requirements,” Diaz said. “We don’t want any leg lines riding up or weak seams, so we source the best fabrics and put them through rigorous stretch tests, wash tests, wear tests, and we test the adhesion of our crystals to the fabric.”

GK Elite typically uses nylon spandex blends or polyester spandex blends since both fabrics are good for stretching purposes. This year the Olympic leotards were made using a new material — stretch satin.

“We sourced a stretch satin, so it’s like a really high shine filament yarn fabric that we have not used in gymnastics, that no one has used in gymnastics,” Diaz said. “We are going to be the first to introduce it and we custom dyed it to the right red that we wanted to use and in the specific style we used it in.”

Athletes particularly expressed their desire for mesh to be utilized in the designs.

“Mesh has become a standard of being used in sleeves,” Diaz said. “And the upper bodice area of leotards — that was something that was super important to the athletes.”

The gymnasts were also asked whether they would like velvet as part of their leotards, since “velvet has been making a comeback in the general ready-to-wear fashion.” Diaz said that designers wanted to measure how velvet “would be received in gymnastics.”

“[Athletes] would like to see touches of velvet, so we incorporated some touches — little binding accents and high neck collars,” Diaz said. “It really does help with comfort because it’s so soft, but we didn’t want to use it in big areas so that they get really hot.”

Crystal usage in gymnastic leotards has grown increasingly popular over the recent years and as the Olympic games are viewed by a worldwide audience, GK Elite spares no expense when selecting which crystals they use.

“We use Swarovski crystals,” Diaz said. “We use the best of the best. Our brand is the leading brand in gymnastics apparel, so we make sure that all of our raw materials are also the best of the best.”

Each gymnast receives eight leotards and thousands of crystals are attached in distinct patterns on each one. The 47,000 crystals were used across each of the seven — five main competitors and two alternates — gymnasts’ eight leotards.

Diaz said an estimated retail price could vary from $1,000 to $5,000 for each leotard.

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Brenna Ferreira can be reached at bferreira@cornellsun.com.

BREANNA FERREIRA Sun Senior Writer