Cornell on Fire Post 10/11: The sound of a policy backfiring

Dear Cornell on Fire,

“Actions have consequences.” And the consequences of the Cornell administration’s repressive expressive policy actions have been swift and unequivocal: they have masterfully backfired.

The Cornell administration’s headline-grabbing move to suspend graduate student Momodou Taal without due process offers a surprisingly bald revelation of the administration’s unsurprising real priorities and real biases. The administration employed racialized rhetoric in their attempts to justify punitive treatment singling out Taal, who is Black and Muslim, as documented by Black Students United and allied groups. The administration refuses to defend or justify their actions to any member of the press, and by extension the public, earning the well-deserved title Cornell the Indefensible from journalist Aaron Fernando. We condemn this action along with the University’s wider attempts to scare employees, students, and faculty into silence.  

The administration’s willingness to walk so far out on this quaking branch of overreaching authority reflects the degree to which they fear activism that dares to go beyond sidewalk-chalk to engage in actual protest and civil disobedience in the pursuit of free expression. 

At the sound of a megaphone, the administration’s pulse quickens. Will their authority be challenged? Will their toy-problem approach to the neoliberal pretense of “institutional neutrality” be dashed by an encounter with the real world? Will the protesters (gasp) offend or inconvenience their gods, the Donors? Might they lose a few dollars from fossil-fuel and military industry giants who would prefer to operate on campus unimpeded, tossing their pocket change “philanthropy” and “generosity” into the administration’s eager hands while profiting off climate breakdown and war crimes? 

With their special flair for the absurd, Cornell’s administration has condemned peaceful protesters for being “unreasonably loud” and causing “potential hearing loss” due to shouting and banging pots and pans. As a matter of fact, Canadian audiologists have carefully dissected the decibel levels associated with “noisy dishes irritant syndrome.” For reference, the sound of stainless steel pans hitting metal is about 94 decibels, while the sound of a sink compactor and dishwasher running at the same time is 110 decibels, or as loud as a rock concert. Someone shouting in your ear is about 110 decibels (there is no evidence that protesters shouted in people’s ears). Meanwhile, Cornell’s athletic teams tear up plastic playing fields while blaring amplified music ranging from 117-136 decibels at all hours. By their own lights, the administration should provide quality hearing protection to their kitchen staff and athletes before punishing protesters. Perhaps we can gift the administration with their own set of ear protectors for everyday kitchen activities, protests, and sporting events.

The administration might also constructively remind their Board of Trustees Chair, Kraig Kayser, who also sits on the board of the major weapons company Moog, that the the sound of an air raid is 130 decibels.

The sound of a policy backfiring is harder to measure, but is already reaching historic decibel levels. Cornell’s present administration is now renowned for its lack of moral courage or accountability, and they have just rescinded their baseless suspension of Momodou Taal. Meanwhile, Momodou remained pointedly unafraid after weeks of their intimidation: “It is time that we lose our fear, being proud of standing on the right side of history.” 

Momodou’s words point at an important and underappreciated element of the campus protest situation: we are engaged in “low-intensity struggle” and can opt out at any moment (as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira outlines in Hospicing Modernity). The administration’s fear tactics are calculated to exploit that fact. As members of an Ivy League campus and community, we belong to the world’s most privileged and affluent (and carbon polluting) classes. Most of us choose if, when, where, and how to engage in activism and justice. We can duck out if there’s even a hint of real sacrifice. By contrast, those on the frontlines of climate breakdown, colonial violence, and war crimes are mostly engaged in “high-intensity struggle.” The stakes can be life and death. They rarely have a choice to “opt out” of the struggle. And ultimately, none of us can “opt out” of climate breakdown – or, we submit, our responsibility to challenge the business-as-usual university that helps cause it.

Oliveira reminds us that a decolonizing approach to activism must remain aware of how one’s low-intensity struggle is read by those engaged in high-intensity struggle. She asks activists to become hyper-self-reflexive: 

“To what extent are you aware of how you are being read by communities of high-intensity struggle? Who (in these communities) would legitimately roll their eyes at what you are doing (i.e., find it indulgent, self-serving, self-congratulatory, or self-infantilizing?)” (Hospicing Modernity, p. 247). 

Here on campus, the administration’s fear tactics gamble upon our individualistic fears overcoming our collective conscience: they wager that we will opt out of our low-intensity struggle if there is even a hint of personal sacrifice. They hope that we will relinquish our solidarity with, and unconditional accountability, to all our relations. 

The administration, of course, is wrong. Get a therapist for your noisy dishes irritant syndrome, esteemed and sensitive administrators.

To purposeful noise,

Cornell on Fire

Special Announcements from our Alliance Partners: 

• Thursday, October 17th, 5-6:30pm: The student group Fossil Free Cornell is holding a recruitment event in Mann Library, Room 102. Join these powerful undergraduate researcher-advocates! 

• Wednesday, October 16th, 5:30-6:30:  Make Cornell Pay Ithaca Schools Rally on Bernie Milton Pavilion, Ithaca Commons. Ithaca Teachers Association Invites you to “Help us deliver our petition to Cornell’s new Community Relations Director, Jennifer Tavares, on her first day on the job! Share with your networks! 



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Plurivocality: CoF Posts are written by a revolving team of writers. Our movement is diverse, so are our thoughts, and so will be our posts. If you receive a CoF Post that you think is wrong headed, can we still walk together? (We, like you, sometimes write things we later laugh at!) 

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