Cornell’s new speech policy is a puzzling mess of extremely technical and burdensome restrictions on free expression. Its new policy runs contrary to the university’s obligation to have a narrowly tailored limitations that do not unintentionally and unnecessarily chill students’ speech. Mendocino Envtl. Ctr. v. Mendocino Cty. (9th Cir. 1999); Clark v. Cmty. for Creative Non-Violence (1984). In particular, the restrictions regarding amplified sound on Ho Plaza and using flame retardant paper make it nigh impossible to host any sort of protest or utilize regular printer-sized paper for any advertisements. Please change the policy to allow us to use amplified sound during more hours of the day e.g., after 12:00pm ET, and allow us to use printer paper for advertisements.

To Whom It May Concern: 

The University's new interim expressive activity policy is an insult to the freedom of expression you proclaim to espouse. It is a troubling sign, if not dystopian, that during a time when student activism and civil disobedience are fundamental to raising awareness about so many different causes around the world that the school has chosen to take these drastic measures. You value order over justice, and obedience over peace. It reeks of McCarthyism--shame on you for making the students choose between standing up for what they believe in and their academic prospects. 

I find the proposed to be beneath the dignity of our institution. In a year of purported "free expression," it is ridiculous that the University would propose a policy that facially discriminates against the time, place, and manner of student protests. I take particular issue with the requirements of fire-retardant paper for regular flyers, with the prohibitions on chalking, with the restriction on audio amplification in front of Day Hall, and with the idea that the University can be the "sole arbiter" of future disciplinary proceedings under this rule. The real arbiter will be the federal judge presiding over the inevitable lawsuit that will arise when administration oversteps the bounds of the First Amendment. Cornell can try and be the "sole arbiter," but the fact that it receives state and federal funding will inevitably frustrate this argument.

As a Cornell family we wholeheartedly support these interim policies with the goal of keeping all of our students safe. The repetitive, loud, disruptive, hate-speech filled protests on campus are highly distracting and scary for many students and staff. Rules need to be in place to allow for freedom of expression in a safe manner, and we need to ensure they are enforced properly. Students are grateful for protection as their school is supposed to be their safe space, in all spaces and at all times. Thank you!! 

While I care deeply about free speech, no freedom is ever absolute and this right also has to be managed in a way that protects conflicting interests and rights of our community members. I think this policy is a good first draft of that compromise between keeping the peace, so that we can go on about the business of this university, and allowing community members to protest peacefully. 

If health and safety are truly valued, why are you not enforcing a mask rule, which is proven to prevent respiratory illnesses that literally prevent us from researching, teaching, and learning?

"Posters, signs, or light projections  that have been erected or displayed without approval or that are more than two weeks old will be removed by appropriate university personnel. Any cost associated with the removal will be billed to the sponsoring Cornell organization, unit, or individual. " This harms academic and scholarly announcements. Many departments and programs make semester-long posters, which reduced printing costs for any sponsoring group. Also, "flame-resistant" posters for posters more than 8.5"x11" has a negative environmental impact and higher printing costs. Will department and other budget allotments increase to meet this un-ecological and genuinely excessive rule?  

Hello

I just have a question about the Interim Expressive Activity policy. Has face-masking while protesting been addressed? Hiding one's identity is a barrier to creating a more inclusive environment that promotes mutual respect and exchange of ideas. Thank you

Cornell Theme Year should be called " A Guide on Attacking Free Speech On College Campuses." The Interim Expressive Activity Policy does not align with Cornell's values. It's Any Person and Any Study until you exercise your First Amendment rights. Now, you face disciplinary action. You're only allowed to exercise your First Amendment right one hour a day on weekdays. Where's the Department of Education to protect students' First Amendment rights? A university with multiple state-assisted schools shouldn't be allowed to impose strict limitations on speech. Lastly, Cornell can overlook their students getting doxxed but will dispatch police right away when someone exercises their First Amendment right. This policy heavily promotes police and university surveillance while also diminishing student's rights.

My name is Dr. Alexander Livingston (Government) and I write to submit my remarks on the interim policy published in today's Cornell Daily Sun into the record of the University Assembly. The university's conduct in recent days offers compelling reasons to think this policy must be revoked. It can only fail students, staff, faculty, and the very core value of free expression it claims - mistakenly - to advance.  I submit these comments as both a member of the Cornell community and a political scientist with expertise in the field of democracy and dissent. 

*

This past Thursday, some hundred students orchestrated a peaceful “die in” in Mann library in protest of the University’s financial ties to companies profiting from Israel’s indefinite occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Students lay motionless on the library floor and read out the names of some of the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in the conflict in Gaza. The protest was cleared by campus police within ten minutes. An unspecified number of students who participated in the protest now could be facing disciplinary review by the University. 

Recent years have seen a diverse and creative set of student protests at Cornell. Students occupied Day Hall to demand the University cut its contracts with Starbucks, blocked traffic on East Avenue to shame the University for its morally odious investments in fossil fuels and reenacted the 1969 occupation of Willard Straight Hall to demand greater hiring of faculty and staff of color, better mental health support for students and the creation of an anti-racism institute. The University administration did not simply tolerate these disruptive actions; they listened to students and responded. All three protests played a role in changing University policy. Cornell has committed to ending its partnership with Starbucks, to divesting from fossil fuels and launched an enormous anti-racism initiative transforming curriculum, research and student support. 

Why was this time different?

Thursday’s “die in” was the first test of the Interim Expressive Activity Policy introduced two weeks ago. The policy reiterates a set of existing policies defining the boundaries of free assembly and speech on campus and introduces a whole series of new ones. These include a stipulation that any protest over 50 people receive University pre-approval, narrowly restrict the use of amplified sound to a one-hour window and only in specific locations, forbid the use of paper or cloth for any sign or banner larger than 8×11 and bar the use of candles or any placards held on sticks. Students who assembled on the Agriculture Quad and lay on the floor of Mann Library could face disciplinary sanction for violating this policy. 

It should be noted that all of the above protests would now be prohibited on campus under this policy. The hundreds of students who engaged in them would now risk similar disciplinary review. 

Cornellians should be very concerned about this turn of events. These new rules are ripe for abuse to repress speech the administration considers inconvenient. The rules effectively tell students, staff and faculty alike that the administration will be exercising heightened surveillance of your political expression, has crafted new tools for making it harder for you to participate in the political life of campus and is not afraid to use its disciplinary powers to enforce its will. And all of this under the rubric of “the year of free expression.”

Leaderboard 2

In a statement released after the protest on Thursday, the Office for University Relations illustrates the strange doublespeak required of the administration’s new policy of repressing speech in the name of speech. In one single sentence, it affirms students’ right to protest while forbidding all conduct that poses a disruption to campus life. The author seems to imagine an impossibly constricted vision of acceptable protest that students will inevitably fail to satisfy.

In this sense the statement bears the most disagreeable resemblance to a different document I studied with students in my class on civil disobedience this week, “A Call for Unity” issued by Alabama clergy in April 1963. The letter was a statement on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s campaign of nonviolent direct action to desegregate Birmingham. Its liberal signers expressed their sympathy with Black protestors while decrying the disruption of their methods as an affront to rights of others. It was this self-serving argument that inspired Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous reflection about the nature of protest, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

It proved timely to reread King’s letter with students this week to remind us that a protest that does not pose any disruption is no protest at all. The very point of engaging in protest is to force before the public what they don’t want to hear. This is what King means when he describes the work of protestors as Socratic gadflies — annoying pests stirring us from slumber — who use their very bodies to occupy spaces they don’t belong and stage claims the public refuses to hear. 

When gay and lesbian activists in the early 1990s began publicly performing their own anticipated deaths from HIV/AIDS as the “die-in” in defiance of the federal government’s callous denial of the public health crisis, they sought to do more than simply express an opinion. They were courageously staging their vulnerability to nonviolently inconvenience their fellow citizens, block access to offices and laboratories and arrest the flow of an everyday life that was killing them, even if only for a few minutes. In these fugitive moments of disruption, these courageous activists created spaces where their voices could be heard. They sought to confront the public with a reality it tries hard to deny and invite a genuine dialogue that this policy’s bad faith demands for “civil” dialogue forecloses. 

Democracy needs disruption. Without it, the centripetal pull of political life takes more and more matters out of the people’s hands and places them in the internal and often unaccountable control of the institutions that govern us. Order is only one political good we always need to balance against others. Democratic states therefore have an obligation to tolerate a certain degree of disruptive protest, even a very high degree, in the name of democracy itself. 

It has been said that a democracy’s ability to tolerate disruptive demonstrations is an important test of its commitment to values like free expression. If the same can be said of universities, this week’s intolerance of even the relatively minor disruption posed by a “die in” should earn the Cornell administration a failing grade. 

https://cornellsun.com/2024/02/12/livingston-there-is-no-free-expressio…

I am horrified at the Interim Expressive Activity Policies. These policies will substantially limit free speech, cultivate an atmosphere of fear and mistrust, and further alienate the student population. This is absolutely counter to Cornell's theme year of "freedom of expression."

The interim expressive activity policy should be rejected in its entirety. It will inevitably involve the University in viewpoint discrimination, not because that is the intent but because the process as designed all but guarantees viewpoint discrimination. As a result, it will open the University up to legal action and, ironically, future political investigations for doing so. 

It will suppress and chill speech on campus, diminishing the University's educational mission and cheapening our values. This suppressive effect will extend well beyond the current issues that seem to have generated the policy. It will extend, in time, to cover any issue of public controversy. Race and racism. Gender identity and its expression. The policies of foreign governments that Cornell has dealings with. Whatever might at some point become a matter of controversy will be in effect suppressed, either not occurring or being pushed outside the regulatory framework altogether.

Controversial subjects, instead of being engaged in in a spirit of healthy dialogue and debate, will inevitably be subjected to greater supervision. Each requirement for registration or prior approval creates a new step where someone will have to decide whether or not it should be granted. To the extent that the policy is premised on concern for “public safety,” controversial issues will receive more scrutiny, because the responsible approvers on these issues will be more likely to exercise caution, to check with their supervisors, or ask for more details and impose more restrictions on the event organizers. It is entirely predictable that they would do this because it is entirely understandable. Indeed, it is already happening. The result will be a climate on campus where, as a result of University policy, some viewpoints can be expressed and others cannot. This is the essence of viewpoint discrimination.

And because students and others will recognize that their speech is being singled out for unequal treatment, some number of them will not abide by the policies. This will in turn open them up to punishment and sanction. The likely result is that marginalized students, including students of color, non-conforming gender identity, and others, or students whose views do not align with prevailing opinion on campus or in the administration, including conservative students and left-wing students, will be more likely to be sanctioned for violating the policy than others. Regardless of whether this will produce legal action against the University, as it ought to, it will be a profoundly unjust situation. 

I recognize that the interim policy brings together some existing policies while creating new ones. In fact, by my read all of the reasonable requirements are already existing policy, raising the question of why such a new policy is needed. Many of the existing ones are reasonable, as demonstrated by the fact that expressive activity on campus is lively without being so disruptive as to impede the functioning of the University or a reasonably open space. But even these existing, reasonable policies are made worse by being concentrated in a single policy statement that is clearly intended to restrict speech. It requires us to read a variety of sensible regulations, currently spread out across various University policies, in the context of a broader policy that is profoundly restrictive. Since the interpretation of regulations is made relative to its broader context, even sensible existing regulations are made more stringent by being placed in a different context. 

The interim policy does worse in its creation of new policies. By far the most egregious are the demands for registration for outdoor events and for permission/registration of postering indoors and its near total prohibition outdoors. As described, these inevitably create not just the opportunities for viewpoint discrimination but create a process that all but ensures it, as described above. But the policy generally gives the University greater tools for suppressing speech on supposedly neutral grounds. As we all know, this creates a situation ripe for abuse and viewpoint discrimination based on the sympathies or, more likely, anxieties of whichever administrator or university officer has discretion to invoke these policies to shut down an event or sanction its organizers. 

More generally, the policy is rife with ambiguity and reveals a profound lack of understanding of how expressive speech operates in the real world and a total lack of awareness of how poorly designed processes generate biases and discrimination. One example: the assumption that organizations can accurately anticipate the numbers of people who will show up for protests in order to request permission in advance to hold them suggests a lack of familiarity with how expressive activity takes place. 

I strongly suspect that had the policy been designed through the appropriate shared governance channels, rather than by unknown "stakeholders," the obvious flaws and clear implications for chilling speech and viewpoint discrimination would have been noticed. It seems as though the policy is being hastily thrown together in anticipation of congressional or executive investigation. As a result, the policy is so poorly designed and little-thought through that it will produce more of the discrimination that these agencies suggest is one of their primary concerns. The University should instead make the affirmative case that free and open expressive activity on campus is essential to its educational mission; should recognize with pride that expressive activity at Cornell is lively and safe even when impassioned and conflicting, as it ought to be in a free society; and should reject contingent and unprincipled demands to crack down on some speech, demands that if acceded to will inevitably invite future demands and investigations against other forms of speech as well as against the University's misguided efforts to police it. 

The only way out of this mess is to reject this policy altogether.

The proposed policy contravenes our mission and purpose and needs to be rejected. “Cornell’s mission is to discover, preserve and disseminate knowledge, to educate the next generation of global citizens, and to promote a culture of broad inquiry throughout and beyond the Cornell community. Cornell also aims, through public service, to enhance the lives and livelihoods of students, the people of New York and others around the world.”

To become global citizens, our students need to be able to exercise their right to free speech, even and especially when that speech challenges dominant public views. Citizens are not followers of state order. Citizens question prevailing social views, asking difficult questions and raising their voices to advocate for social change. Global citizens have the potential to make the world a better place. In contrast, followers of state order have been involved in world’s greatest harms. (I have experienced some of them and do not wish them upon anyone.) Many of us are at Cornell because we want to contribute to an institution that teaches citizens who question, not people who obey the rules or are too intimidated to speak up. Authoritarianism is on the rise the world over, and we need to affirm the value of educating citizens who can meet the challenges of our time.

Lessons about and for citizenship cannot be taught only theoretically. They need to rest on a bedrock of actionable democratic principles. If Cornell gives a known or unknown administrative body the right to regulate which protests are permitted and which are not, how are we to trust that all Cornellians will have equal rights? If a policy limits the materials required for protests and free expression, such as the paper flyers may be printed on, how are we to ensure that we will not have free speech only for the rich who can afford the money, time, and resources to print on special paper?

The University has not given us good reasons that would motivate this policy or provided any evidence for its necessity. Nothing the University has said comes close to justifying the proposed restrictions and punishments. The right to free speech, expression, and assembly are constitutionally protected precisely because they are so important and need to be safeguarded. And we are in the business of teaching reasons – we teach how to make reasoned, well-supported arguments, how to design evidence-based policies, how to challenge arbitrary and unfair ones. The proposed policy does not model good reasoning or good policy-making. Instead, it betrays the fundamental principles of higher education: that reasons matter, that evidence matters, that fair policy-making matters. If the University passes it, what lessons will our students learn about the value and purpose of knowledge they are gaining at Cornell?

Cornell's theme of the year was the heavily touted  “The Indispensable Condition: Freedom of Expression at Cornell.”  Ironically, the Interim Expressive Activity Policy includes stunning restrictions on freedom of expression.  No candlelight vigils unless candles are approved by a third party?  No protests unless you use flyers and posters that cannot be seen above the crowd.   No posting of flyers  without jumping through several bureaucratic hoops, which makes posting an onerous project?  These among other restrictions on freedom of expression in the "interim policy" essentially deter speaking out about anything without approval from the administration.   Note the opaque language..  Permits are expected for many of these actions.  To get a permit, one must agree to other restrictions.  Administrators tell us permits are not required, but "expected."  Yet, a student can be punished for not having a permit.  The expectation for a permit that results in punishment if not obtained sounds like a requirement to me.  In the end, with this policy, the administration is securing complete discretion on what constitutes freedom of expression.  That's not freedom.  It's Orwellian.

Finally, this policy from the upper layers of the administration is being imposed on us without consultation.  No shared governance, here.  Faculty, staff and students need to join together to insist this policy be rejected as soon as possible.

The Interim Expressive Activity Policy is misguided and undemocratic. How can our students, who are already terrified of public speech and resort to wear masks to attend student gatherings, be expected to register their events? How can we, as teachers of democracy, civil rights, freedom of expression and social movements, reconcile our classroom content with this policy's restrictions on simplest things like candles, posters, and sticks at student protests. How do things like candle light vigils, event announcements, picket lines, which are part and parcel of democratic activity and expression, and of mourning and contemplating in community, pose concerns for campus safety and health? Many of these things are allowed even in Turkey, where I'm originally from, and which has been the site of unprecedented academic repression in recent years.

I find every and all restrictions and requirements of the January 2024 Interim Policy Changes at Cornell University to be unconstitutional, unacceptable, and abhorrent. 

I call on all parties involved to reject them unconditionally and without any further discussion.

Just Say No!

Slava Paperno, Senior Lecturer

A Cornellian since 1981

I am both a past graduate of Cornell and current Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature. I returned to Cornell this past summer, after many years teaching elsewhere, drawn back to Ithaca in part precisely by the university’s commitment to academic freedom, free speech, non-sectarianism, its egalitarian founding values, and exceptional intellectual atmosphere. I considered it a tremendously good sign that this academic year would be a ‘year of free expression and academic freedom’. 

It is troubling to see Cornell propose this ‘Interim Expressive Activity Policy’, a disturbing and anti-democratic litany of Orwellian proposals that are clearly designed to suppress free speech, the free exchange of ideas, the right to protest, the right to uphold political positions on campus, and the right to exercise democratic principles, making a mockery of Cornell’s own history, policies, and values. One can only note bleakly the hypocrisy of proposing a ‘year of free expression and academic freedom’ within which a massive curtailment of that same ‘free expression’ would take place. I can think of nothing more contrary to the spirit of Cornell’s historically non-partisan, non-sectarian spirit than to tell students, faculty, and staff that the administration can decide what is a legitimate political position and what is not: freedom is meaningless unless it is precisely the freedom of one who thinks differently from the dominant order or from the decrees of regimes.

This policy is ill-advised, at odds with Cornell’s legacy, and has the potential to do permanent and lasting damage to the culture and spirit of the university. 

The Chinese students who put up "Not My President" posters with images of Xi Jinping, Muslim students--anyone taking a stand that invites reprisal--is already up against something. Any rules regulating posters, protests, etc. are delicate--these rules are blunt, and the connotations are clear given current events: it is de facto viewpoint suppression. NO to this. 

My name is Nico Silins and I'm a professor in the philosophy department.  I have some questions about a specific provision of the interim expressive policy, and some more general comments.

Among many other provisions, the interim policy specifies that "Chalking is not permitted on any vertical surface (i.e., sides of buildings)."

A blackboard in a classroom or office is a vertical surface, but not a side of a building.  Is chalking prohibited on such surfaces?  My young daughter who sometimes chalks here needs to know.  

Some buildings such as Gates Hall have sides or supports that aren't vertical surfaces.  Is chalking ok on such surfaces?

The level of detail in such prescriptions is extraordinary, as is the rushed character of the formulation of them.  To best understand them, we should probably zoom out and ask, what is the spirit of the proposed rules?  

The spirit seems to be to stifle Cornell’s rich and productive tradition of campus protest.  Such nitpicking does not reflect who we are as a community.  It even seems to indicate a fear on the part of the administration that any peaceful protest may be only one brandished candlelight or pole away from violence, making me worry that our administration does not understand who we are as a community.  

Even if the interim speech code is to be applied in a content-neutral manner, its onerous requirements simply threaten to chill all campus speech on sensitive issues, in a content-neutral way.  Given the interim code’s curious mix of vagueness over penalties with specificity over the sorts of surfaces that may permissibly be chalked, it is hard not to worry that punishments may indeed fail to be administered in a content-neutral manner.  It is also difficult to see the possibility of content-neutral centralized vetting of invitations to campus speakers, setting aside the striking demand that "University sponsors are responsible for overseeing their sponsored guests and activities while on university owned or controlled property and must have a representative present during the actual event or activity."    

I hope Cornell’s rich tradition of boisterous and peaceful protest will not need a candle-light vigil of its own.  

The interim expressive activity policy is chilling. And anyone who knows the adolescent mind knows that it will pour gasoline on the fire of their desire to seek justice. Repression of speech through bureaucratic minutiae is a familiar tactic but not one I had ever thought I'd see at Cornell. As a longtime employer and co-founder of Ithaca City of Asylum, which has facilitated Cornell's hosting of dissident writers from repressive countries, I am deeply disappointed.  

University Policy 4.23. Interim Expressive Activity Policy

General comment: this appears an example of attempted regulatory and control over-reach to address problems that largely do not exist—indeed the interim policy attempts contrary the First Amendment to restrict “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” and to abridge the freedom of speech. Current Cornell policies and relevant state and federal laws are largely adequate to protect persons and property and to prevent/prosecute incitement/threats/violence/harassment, topics which should be a concern for the university and the state (to make a case that these issues are not covered: explain exactly what is not currently adequate). What is inadequate is clarity of leadership, communication, and education to encourage (on campus, where Cornell has some ability to encourage in the present, and in society generally where Cornell and Cornellians can hope to influence positively now and in the future) respect for all groups and beliefs and to value different and plural viewpoints and, in particular, to increase understanding of the history, context, and causes of racism, religious persecution, hate speech, intolerance and all forms of harassment. And so, hopefully, to reduce/end these and improve lives and the world in general. This, rather than attempts to restrict and control freedom of expression, should be the aim of a university. The Interim Expressive Activity Policy fails usefully to address the real threats and problems around hate speech, racism, religious persecution, intimidation/harassment, and, in particular, at present: antisemitism or Islamophobia. What the proposed interim policies will do, contrary the stated aims of Cornell University and very particularly in the supposed year of “…Freedom of Expression at Cornell” (https://statements.cornell.edu/2023/20230417-free-expression.cfm), is restrict freedom of expression and speech rights on campus. Why? This interim policy seeks to create new requirements and hurdles that will restrict spontaneous and practical expressive activity on campus. Yet, almost by definition, if there is a cause rightly needing protest and “expressive activity” then, to begin at least, this should be spontaneous and immediate since, if it is important, it should be protested and expressed about as soon, and as visibly, and loudly as possible. The analogy is medical: if there is an injury you do not want first responders to have to apply for permission to register before doing anything, to limit the number of responders, to delay action while obtaining flame retardant bandages and signs, and generally to be delayed in reacting. What Cornell is trying to do with the Interim Expressive Activity Policy is to limit and restrict exactly the types of spontaneous freedom of expression that we claim to support such as: Black Lives Matter protests and movement, Women’s Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, etc., etc.

In general this Interim Expressive Activity Policy is contrary the long-stated aims and values of Cornell and all liberal democratic principles (where belief in freedom of expression does not just mean for ourselves but includes for those we disagree with). All persons and property should be protected and threats, incitement to violence, and hate speech stopped, but, at the same time, there should be a maximum freedom of expression. This Interim policy is an unfortunate, legalistic, and inappropriate response to the on-going tragedies over the past five months and will not serve to address nor contribute to solving the scourges of racism, antisemitism and Islamophobia, nor the other sources of discrimination and harassment within society and at Cornell around race, gender, identities and beliefs. This Interim policy is the result of a lack of prior discussion and consultation.

On specifics within the Interim Policy, others have noted a number of relevant points regarding inappropriate restrictions and requirements that stifle and in no way encourage freedom of expression or run against the history of the most important protests and vigils nationally and world-wide, e.g.:

https://cornellsun.com/2024/02/05/lieberwitz-statement-in-protest-of-the-cornell-university-interim-expressive-activity-policy/

One additional topic in the Interim Expressive Activity Policy, however, requires notice, comment, and protest. The Interim Expressive Activity Policy contains language in its Section II that seeks (or can enable) restriction of academic freedom – including in terms of classroom and curricula experiences – by faculty and freedom of expression by students and faculty and staff. This is the language in Section II 2nd-4th paragraphs which seeks to make it necessary for any expressive activity using university resources by Cornellians or sponsored university guests (like a seminar, lecture, performance, dialogue, debate, discussion, etc.) to be formally controlled by either academic units or registered student organizations. Thus, for example, individual faculty, even groups of faculty, may not invite a speaker to address a class or participate in a discussion or any activity on campus (physically or virtually) without prior ‘formal’ sponsorship by a College, School, Academic Department, or Administrative Unit of the University. The Interim Expressive Activity Policy states that “No other Cornell individuals or groups may sponsor university guests for expressive activities.” Such explicit stressing of control over the rights and choices of individual faculty or groups of faculty runs entirely against the academic freedom model—respecting relevant laws and freedom of speech requirements—that Cornell claims to represent and uphold. Indeed, this runs contrary the claim made by President Pollack and the University leadership that “It is important to note that the interim Expressive Activity Policy does not supersede classroom and curricular experiences, which are the purview of faculty” (https://statements.cornell.edu/2024/20240124-university-policies-under-development.cfm). Incorrect: since ability now to invite participation by a guest in a class discussion or seminar, for example, is no longer at the choice and discretion of the relevant teaching faculty members(s), but is at a minimum under the control of their Department Chair and cannot be spontaneous but only after a process. Indeed, because the Interim policy requires such sponsorship by managing entities this creates a whole new level of administrative interference/oversight and activity (and likely reporting and surveillance) that inevitably will reduce breadth of viewpoints, spontaneity of expression, and timely engagement with topics of concern. This can only limit and so harm the student experience. All this greatly changes the model of individual academic freedom held by every individual faculty member at Cornell. Again: this reflects a policy created without prior consultation and discussion.

To provide a historical perspective on this conversation, I share the story of Cornell's Climate Action Plan. In this story, we see how student activism inspired the university administrators to commit to climate action. Today, Cornell has become a leader amongst its peers in seeking solutions to green its operations, get to net zero, and seek solutions to the thorny challenges of global climate change. 

Students are at the heart of Cornell’s sustainability story, and they were the spark behind the university’s first formal climate commitment in 2001. Here is the story behind this commitment, from the perspective of a few of the students (now alumni) and staff (many of whom are also Cornell alumni) who were involved in negotiating the commitment.

Abigail (Abby) Krich Starr ’04, MEng ’06 entered Cornell in the fall of 1999, when nations around the world were debating adoption of the Kyoto Protocol—a set of voluntary commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions. When the U.S. failed to commit to the Protocol, which called for a 7% reduction in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2008–2012, a group of Cornell students calling themselves Kyoto Now! (KN) asked the university to commit to this same level of reductions.

According to Lindsey Saunders ’04, Kyoto Now! was founded by several members of the Cornell Greens, a group of students interested in sustainability who had attended COP6 in November 2000 in the Hague, Netherlands. The students’ experience at the conference convinced them that the U.S. government was not taking responsibility for our country’s role as the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases. The students believed that research institutions like Cornell could step in to fill the leadership void.

When the students returned to campus, they began working on a plan to get Cornell administrators to commit the university to its own version of the Kyoto Protocol. They named their group Kyoto Now! (KN). “Our name was distinctive and we made hundreds of buttons that raised dozens of questions per day,” Lindsey says. “We asked, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’”

“Cornell was uniquely positioned to make new investments in developing and implementing green technologies,” Lindsey says. “Cornell’s leadership could demonstrate the feasibility of reducing carbon emissions.”

A rally was organized each afternoon. “These events were vibrant social gatherings, where one could enjoy speeches, music, snacks, and joyful camaraderie,” says Doug Krisch ’99, MRP ’03, one of the KN student organizers.

“The students caught a moment in time,” says Lanny Joyce ’81, retired director of Utilities and Energy Management for the university. “They asked the question, ‘Can Cornell adopt a Kyoto pledge, as if we were the U.S.?’”

In early 2001, KN members met with Cornell faculty, facilities managers, and administrators to discuss their request, but were unable to secure a commitment. The students decided to hold a press conference and stage a sit-in at Day Hall. Six core members of KN were joined by hundreds of students throughout the next week (April 12-18, 2001), during which they maintained a 24-hour presence outside Day Hall. They collected nearly 5,000 student signatures in support of their effort.

“Students showed their overwhelming support for Cornell to take action on the pressing topic of our time,” Lindsey says, adding, “This support helped in our ongoing negotiations with the administrators. We pushed for Cornell to make a commitment that would signal real action.”

Susan Murphy ’73, PhD ’94, then vice president for Student and Academic Services, helped to negotiate with the protestors, who subsequently agreed to leave Day Hall when the building closed for the day and not to obstruct access to the building during business hours. Susan recalls driving to campus on Saturday morning, “to wake up the students sleeping in their tents before the Saturday a.m. campus tour, because I was sure they would sleep in (and indeed, they were all asleep). Everyone was very cooperative,” she says.

Harold (Hal) D. Craft ’60, PhD ’70, then vice president for Administration and chief financial officer of Cornell, had to move quickly to respond to the students. Hal had been deeply involved with energy projects at the university for about twenty years, in his prior position as vice president for Facilities and Campus Services. “I was one of the major negotiators for the senior administration,” Hal says, “since the issue in question fell squarely within my responsibilities.” He reached out to Lanny Joyce, to see if the reductions the students were asking for were possible.

Lanny managed supply-side energy planning for the university, as well as energy management of the physical plant—its buildings and associated infrastructure. At the time, Lanny had recently completed the Lake Source Cooling project, an innovative effort to cool campus by relying on a naturally renewable source of chill, namely the deep water of Cayuga Lake. He believed that the university had a tremendous opportunity to reduce its energy use through conservation measures, so he was receptive to investigating the student’s request.

“We were all so illiterate,” Lanny recalls, explaining that no one had ever done a greenhouse gas inventory for Cornell. He pulled together his team of two engineers and they completed the inventory within a matter of hours. “First, we had to figure out how much carbon dioxide comes from burning a ton of coal, we had to inventory all of our energy use, and then we had to try to project the university’s growth (and associated impacts on emissions) through the 2008–2012 deadline,” he says, adding, “We looked back at the past 11 years and made an educated guess.”

“For several years, KN members delivered a ton of coal to Ho Plaza on Earth Day,” Lanny says. “They asked passersby how long that amount of coal would operate a hair dryer—and everyone was always surprised to learn that it was not that long. Letting other students see and touch the coal helped promote climate literacy on campus.” Lanny did the math and, according to his calculations, burning one ton of coal would run a 1500-watt hair dryer for about 60 days, and produce two tons of carbon dioxide.

“For several years, KN members delivered a ton of coal to Ho Plaza on Earth Day,” Lanny says. “They asked passersby how long that amount of coal would operate a hair dryer—and everyone was always surprised to learn that it was not that long. Letting other students see and touch the coal helped promote climate literacy on campus.” Lanny did the math and, according to his calculations, burning one ton of coal would run a 1500-watt hair dryer for about 60 days, and produce two tons of carbon dioxide.

Lanny explains that, at that time, Cornell had about 150 buildings of varying ages and varying degrees of efficiency. Just as regular preventative maintenance on a car can greatly improve the efficiency of the vehicle over time, Lanny thought that Cornell could realize significant energy and cost savings by implementing routine preventative maintenance on its buildings. According to his team’s estimates, Cornell could make Kyoto-equivalent reductions in its emissions by the deadline—if it adopted an aggressive energy conservation program and transitioned away from burning coal. He told Hal that the answer to the students’ question was yes.

Hal says that, looking back on the situation today, his main sticking point was “the absolute commitment to a goal when I had no concrete idea either about the potential future university growth (which has been substantial), or what further mitigation steps might be taken or the university’s tolerance for them.” He adds that, “I recall being in complete agreement with the student activists regarding energy conservation and reduction.”

“Late at night the students often sat in circles, singing, talking, or having a brainstorm meeting,” says Doug.

“The goals of the Kyoto Now! protest were hard to argue against,” Susan agrees. “Often you are asked to make decisions with incomplete data or knowledge. I think the student energy on this topic brought the issue to the forefront and led the administration to take a stand,” she says.

Hal explains prior to the Kyoto Now! protest, much of the work to reduce energy consumption on campus had been done behind the scenes. “The work up to that point had been cost-effective and relatively invisible to the campus community,” he says. “I believe that student activism was important and perhaps critical, to bringing to the fore important stuff that was already underway, increasing its visibility and its support throughout the community.”

Lindsey says that KN’s winning strategy was to make a global challenge a local one. “We targeted our own institution to take action. We researched and learned, met with people all over campus, and had an excellent branding campaign: Kyoto Now!,” she says. “We demonstrated that the administration had broad support for committing to be the leader we all knew Cornell could be.”

Doug Krisch ’99, MRP ’03, one of the core group of KN student organizers, says that the students kept negotiating with administrators until they reached an agreement they felt had “teeth”: “We continued until we felt they committed to the standards of the Kyoto Protocol,” Doug says.

“Cornell was the first major nongovernmental institution to voluntarily commit to the Kyoto Protocol standards for greenhouse gas emissions reduction,” says Frankie Abralind ’01, another core member of KN. “This was an incredibly significant event, and it came via a student-led campaign,” he says.

On April 17, 2001, Hal issued a statement affirming Cornell’s commitment to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses. Here is an excerpt:

“Let there be no mistake about it: the attainment of a reduction by 2008 of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions attributable to campus activities to levels 7 percent less than what they were in 1990 will not only be very difficult, it may be unable to be reached despite our best efforts. Nonetheless, the standards established by the Kyoto Protocol serve as a standard for communities as well as nations to emulate. With this in mind, I hereby commit Cornell University to do everything within its ability, consistent with the university’s obligations for teaching, research, service and extension, to implement the Kyoto Protocol standards and to issue a regular report on our progress.”

Hal’s statement concluded with a promise to form a committee comprised of faculty, staff, and students that would be charged with implementing the reductions. In hindsight, Hal believes that the students who served on this committee greatly benefited from the experience of working through “the realities of trying to implement a major physical program or societal change.” Abby couldn’t agree more.

Abby recalls bringing gallons of hot chocolate to the members of Kyoto Now! who were camped outside. “I wasn’t one of the students camped out, but I marched and sang with them in the street, and raised my hand to work with the implementation team to figure out how Cornell could actually meet its commitment once Vice President Craft made it,” she says. “It’s what led me to the career I am in, working in renewable energy and trying to shift the wholesale electricity markets system to enable large-scale integration of clean energy.”

Abby says that the mechanics of how to achieve Cornell’s climate commitment were what attracted her to support KN, and to raise her hand to serve as one of two students on the Kyoto Task Team. Lanny Joyce spearheaded the new team, which consisted of a few university engineers, faculty members, and student volunteers.

The task team met bi-weekly, and Lanny says that they had great discussions. The meetings were very democratic and everyone was treated equally, he explains. He encouraged the students to make suggestions and ask questions. “Any idea was fair game, as long as it made single bottom-line sense,” Lanny says. Lanny had a small budget—a few hundred thousand dollars—but what he describes as “a huge task to accomplish.”

At first, the team focused on projects which did not spend money, but instead saved the university money. They were able to realize significant cost and energy savings through preventative maintenance on poorly performing buildings. Within a few years, they began upgrading the control systems in these buildings to increase energy efficiency. “All of these early projects yielded a 5- to 10-year payback on investment,” Lanny reports.

Lanny feels that his work with the Kyoto Task Team was a highlight of his career. “The students on the team were passionate, but they were willing to learn and understand the math, physics, and science behind energy production and use,” he says. Lanny especially loved working with Abby, whom he credits with bringing the first solar installation to campus. “Solar wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been so reasonable, so compromising, and so knowledgeable,” he says, adding, “and now we have 10MW solar installations!”

Abby served on the Kyoto Task Team from fall 2001 through her graduation in May 2004. She recalls pressing for more supply-side change. “We were very focused on reducing energy usage and promoting efficiency,” Abby says. “I remember wanting the university to do both—to conserve and to use clean energy.” She worked with other students, including a few MBA candidates, to craft proposals to install solar panels and build a wind farm to help power campus, but these proposals were rejected.

Kyoto Now! faculty advisor, Professor Zelman Warhaft, received a donation of 90 used solar panels from Richard Aubrecht ’66, MEng ’68, PhD ’70, former vice president of Moog Corporation and trustee emeritus of Cornell. Lanny and Abby tested the panels and verified that they were still productive, and Abby stepped up her efforts to get these panels installed at Cornell.

She recalls meeting with Lanny and then with Hal Craft to try to “break the log jam” for a solar installation on campus. At one meeting at Hal’s office in Day Hall, Abby gazed out the window at the building’s flat roof. “I asked him if we could put the panels there,” she recalls. Hal replied that they would need to confirm that the building was structurally sound enough to accommodate the solar installation. “I asked him, ‘What if the building is structurally sound, and what if we raised the money to fund the installation?’ And he said ok.” This conversation happened in the spring of Abby’s senior year, shortly before she graduated.

Structural analysis showed that the roof of Day Hall could accommodate the panels. In honor of her graduation, Abby and her family created the Krich Family Solar Fund to support a portion of the cost of installing solar panels on campus. About 30 other alumni also contributed to the fund. With the panels and seed funding in hand, Abby secured the administration’s approval to proceed. She recalls that Rob Garrity ’05, a Cornellian who worked for a local solar company, assisted with the design, and the Electrician’s Union’s apprentice class donated their time to help with the installation. “It was a real group effort to get this job done,” Abby says.

Abby hopes that the Day Hall solar installation helped to shift attitudes toward solar energy at Cornell. “I always like to think that having the administrators sitting there looking out at the panels from their offices influenced their thought processes. I never heard again that they were ugly. From then on,” she says, “Cornell really made a commitment to sustainability.”

Abby says her persistence and dedication to do what’s right have paid off. “Ever since my days as an undergrad at Cornell, I try to do my homework. I know what I’m asking for and what it means,” she says. “I don’t know how many times I asked to put solar panels on campus. When they said no, I just kept asking. This was the best possible training for what I do now!”

Speaking to current Cornell students, Abby advises them to seek out and create their own paths. “Job listings are not the extent of what you can do,” she says. “Go to conferences, talk to people, create projects on campus, ask for what you want, and make your own opportunities.”

Abby’s and Cornell’s sustainability success stories are set against a backdrop of sobering scientific realities—including record high greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, and a 2021 UN analysis indicating that the global commitments made under the Paris Agreement will fail to keep global warming under 1.5C in this century.

Bruce Monger, director of undergraduate studies for Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, says that he always shares Abby’s story with his students, as an example of what they can accomplish. Bruce teaches Introductory Oceanography—among the largest and most popular courses at Cornell.

“Abby’s story shows them that they can have a real, lasting impact on making a better world,” Bruce says. “I tell them, ‘Think of the lifelong rewards and warm emotional glow you will feel if you act today. This is how you want to feel as you grow old and grey.’”

“The Kyoto Now! students were passionate about a problem that will plague their generation even more than mine, so frankly, I applaud their push,” says Susan Murphy, adding, “I think it helped move an otherwise slower-moving institution toward action. And, as Abby demonstrated, the students were not just active politically in this area, they also were active intellectually and through their work. When that happens, they are real partners.”

Lindsey Saunders is proud of Cornell for the investments it has made in climate action in the 20 years since she took part in the 2001 Kyoto Now! protest. “The progress made over the years has been lauded and is laudable,” she says. “But it is important to remember that it needed a solid, public nudge to make that commitment.”

“If we want to contribute to the trajectory of our schools, our communities, our families, our cities, we must often stand up and stand out,” agrees Doug Krisch. “When I look back at the Kyoto Now! images from twenty years ago, it fills my heart with such joy. It all began with a handful of students who were very interested in pushing Cornell to be an environmental leader,” he says.

Has senior leadership considered developing a civility module - similar to the sustainability module (https://sustainablecampus.cornell.edu/take-action/student-resources/mission-sustainability-course) - that every incoming student is asked to participate in? This seems like an enormous learning opportunity that aligns with the university mission to create a community where any person is welcome. 

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comment on the Interim Expressive Activity Policy (the “Policy”). Below I have tried to clarify some my questions about both the process and the substance of the Policy. Certainly I well appreciate the challenges of crafting a policy that attends to Cornell’s obligations to maintain an environment that is safe from harm while also preserving the university’s sine qua non of inquiry, dialogue, and contestation. The stakes here are high and it's important to proceed with great care on both the process and substance. To that end:

Process Questions

Status of Faculty Senate consultation. During the February 6th University Assembly (UA) meeting, the consultation process that had been followed in drafting the Policy was outlined. Consultation with the Faculty Senate, or anything approaching it, was lacking from that list. Professor Risa Lieberwitz, a Faculty Senator representing the ILR School, indicated that there had been no consultation with the Faculty Senate regarding the Policy at all. Cornell’s Policy 4.1 on the Formulation and Issuance of University Policies provides that “key stakeholders … will be consulted during the policy drafting process.” That neither the Faculty Senate nor any subpart thereof were consulted would seem to indicate the belief that the faculty qua faculty are not key stakeholders, which to me seems wrongheaded. So my questions here are:

• What was the rationale for excluding the Faculty Senate from consultation in formulating the Policy? 
• What consultative procedures will be followed for purposes of arriving at a "non-interim," final version of the Policy?

Need for a clear Statement of Explanation identifying what is new and different in the Policy. It would seem that good rulemaking practice, and good governance principles, would require any promulgation of new rules to identify what is new about a revised policy, so affected communities can clearly understand how they are impacted. Yet no such explanation (or at least, public explanation) appears to have accompanied the Policy. In addition to running contrary to good governance principles of transparency and accountability, this lack of explanation is also helping to facilitate a climate of confusion and, potentially, misinformation. At the February 6th UA meeting, it was suggested that much of the Policy was not new: one example of that was the prohibition against barring points of building ingress and egress. Yet at other times, it was acknowledged that some components of the Policy were new, such as the request for registration of posters. Without having a clear explanation of what is new and what isn’t, it is hard to make an informed assessment of the Policy’s implications. While interested actors can of course attempt this assessment on their own, the fact that the Policy entails revisions that implicate multiple preexisting rule sources renders accurate assessment difficult for even highly motivated researchers.  My understanding from reviewing Cornell’s Policy 4.1 on the Formulation and Issuance of University Policies is that an “impact statement” is required as part of any policy revision process, so one possibility would be simply to release for public review the impact statement that was presumably already created. So my questions here are:

• Will the University issue a Statement of Explanation to identify exactly which existing rules or guidelines are affected and revised by the Policy, and how they are changed or not changed?
• Will the University release for public review the impact statement that was required as part of the policymaking process?

Substance Questions

Need for clarity as to which aspects of the Policy are mandatory and/or sanctionable. At the February 6th UA meeting, it was emphasized that the Policy should be viewed as “educational.” This "educational" aspect was said to pertain to Policy elements such as the request for advance registration of events where attendance of more than 50 persons is anticipated. At the same time, several speakers from the floor pointed to the very broad scope of the Cornell Student Code of Conduct, especially section IV.H., “Failure to Comply” (also known as “Section H”).[1] The new Policy states that advance registration for events of more than 50 persons is “expected,”[2] and it was unclear whether a student could be subject to sanction for failing to provide such advance registration even if the Policy states the request for registration in “non-mandatory” terms. Unfortunately, I was not able to glean from the discussion whether the concerns about sanction under the new Policy were founded or unfounded. This may have been due to the large number of issues that were on the table for discussion, but I do think that it is important to let students and others know when a policy carries sanctions with it and potentially subjects them to disciplinary procedures for noncompliance. My questions here:

• Can students be sanctioned under the Cornell Student Code of Conduct for failure to comply with any aspects of the Policy?
• If so, will the University clarify which elements of the Policy are sanctionable?

Questions about whether particular restrictions constitute overreaching. Beyond these more general questions above, there were a number of particular aspects of the Policy that struck me as potentially overbroad and for which I would appreciate understanding more of the rationale. These are especially of concern if, per above, aspects of the Policy are mandatory/sanctionable rather than merely suggestive or “educational.” Such questions include the following:

• Ban on use of "sticks" or "poles" during outdoor demonstrations. The Policy contains a prohibition against the use of sticks or poles at outdoor demonstrations, because they might be used as weapons.[3] My questions here are straightforward:
  • Is a student who carries a classic stick-mounted rally sign to a demonstration on Cornell’s campus subject to the Code of Conduct or other sanction for carrying a potential weapon?
  • Does the University intend to enforce this aspect of the Policy against sticks or poles that are used to hold protest signs?

• Ban on posting anonymous expression on campus. The Policy contains a requirement that any poster, sign, flyer or banner posted anywhere on campus must carry identifying information for the group or individual who “sponsored” it.[4]  It was explained at the February 6th UA meeting that the university is attempting to ensure that it is taking due measures to prevent a hostile environment that could be created if some actors post messages that would make other actors feel unsafe, but I did wonder whether this prohibition of any anonymous speech constituted overreaching. It seems to me that the university could follow a protocol similar to those applied to monitoring online discussions, where a statement that causes concern can be flagged to/by the appropriate university monitor, and then action can be taken to remove the statement. While I am not an expert in this area, a "flagging" policy like that would arguably seem to constitute reasonable care on the part of the university in taking measures to protect against a hostile environment, without requiring all authors of posted messages to identify themselves. While I understand the impetus here, I would be concerned that this kind of requirement will have a chilling effect on campus speech. So my questions here are:
  • Does the ban on anonymous messaging constitute overbroad infringement on campus speech?
  • If not, why not?

Thank you again for the opportunity to comment.

Sincerely,

Chantal Thomas

Professor of Law

Cornell Law School

[1] Cornell Student Code of Conduct, p.7, Section IV.H., “Failure to Comply.” (“Failure to comply with:  1. A lawful directive of a University official within the scope of that person’s duties or employment; 2. A policy or operational rule that has been duly promulgated by the University or any college, department, or unit thereof, whether or not the policy has been issued in the standardized University format, including life safety regulations, technology regulations, and policies governing the conduct of registered and recognized student organizations (including fraternities, sororities, and living groups).”)

[2] Interim Expressive Activity Policy, Section III.B. (“Registration of outdoor events involving more than 50 people at the Ithaca, Cornell Tech, and Agritech campuses, or involving more than 15 people at the Weill Cornell Medicine NYC campus, is expected in certain community spaces to minimize the likelihood of conflicting events and to promote safety.”).

[3] Interim Expressive Activity Policy, Section III.B. ("Outdoor demonstrations may not... use sticks, poles, or other items that could be used as weapons.").

[4] Interim Expressive Activity Policy, Section III.D. ("All posters, signs, flyers and banners must ... include the name of the sponsoring Cornell organization or unit or individual…”).

My questions concern the following paragraph from Section II ("Scope"):

"To become sponsored university guests for purposes of this Policy, external groups or individuals must be formally sponsored by one of the following: (a) a college or school, academic department, or administrative unit of the university; (b) a registered university-sponsored student organization and its affiliated office/department/unit; (c) a registered independent student organization; or (d) a Cornell shared governance body (e.g., Faculty Senate, the assemblies). No other Cornell individuals or groups may sponsor university guests for expressive activities."

My questions are: How is narrowly is "administrative unit" defined? Does this policy preclude sponsorship of guests by e.g. programs, interdepartmental working groups, labs, and / or seminars? If so, whence the need to restrict the current normal science of discourse & collaboration, both among scholars at Cornell and with the broader scholarly community?

The interim policy as it stands is entirely wrong-headed, and runs counter to the idea of Cornell being a place where expression is valued.

From the jump, the text of the policy reveals that its writers are disinterested in having protest activities on campus at all:

"Expressive activity may not compromise public safety, impede the free movement of people or vehicles, damage university property, or interfere with regular university operations, as determined by the university.   In addition to this Policy, expressive activity must also comply with all applicable university policies and with facility rules and regulations, including but not limited to occupancy limits, fire codes, and hours of operation. Expressive activity that unreasonably interferences with another’s quiet enjoyment of their living space is not permitted."
(Copied from the Interim Policy page 2024-02-16)

The text of this paragraph is strongly implying (and arguably stating) the concept that only defanged protests are allowable. Under this paragraph, two of the most peaceable forms of protests would be considered counter to university policy; sit-ins and teach-ins (impeding free movement/interfering with regular university operations) would be held counter to policy, while the die-in format is already being removed and disrupted in a way that seems to imply it too is counter to university policy.

Similarly, later elements of the text seem to forbid vigil activities through a ban on candles and lamps. I am also seconding concerns raised here by other members of the Cornell community in the ban on sticks or poles; does this constitute a ban on signs held on sticks or poles? The text seems laughably unclear regarding this very crucial point.
Later text also states that "...posters, signs and banners larger than 8” x 11” should be made from flame retardant materials"; this seems to be an outright ban on large banners or signs, unless the university is planning on making the price of this material affordable for student use. Secondarily, I am interested in how the university plans to handle the disposal of this material in an environmentally-conscious fashion.
Much of this text seems to be written in the concerned tone of public safety, but neglects to weigh in on biosafety. Would students be penalized for wearing masks or bandannas that aim to stop the spread of infectious disease or allergens?

As many others have pointed out, this policy leaves large gaps in 1) how this policy would be enforced, and 2) what violations are sanctionable.
How will the university actually determine who was engaged in the protest? Is the plan to involve police, campus or otherwise? Is there a plan in place for how this would impact international student visa holders (or are they implicitly discouraged from protesting so as not to risk their visa)? From the employee side, as well; are there employees with the bandwidth to process all of this enforcement? Cornell has a long, long history of running a lean crew, and many employees are already doing the work that 20 years ago was done by three colleagues; how would enforcing this policy impact the regular functions of the university?
From the sanctions side, will there be a system of escalating severity, or is one action enough to warrant expulsion or termination of financial support (and would the latter be legally sound in the case of federal financial aid)? How would students be notified of the consequences; are there plans for some form of mandatory teaching module, or will this be an unpleasant surprise? Is there a process in place for appeals, if a student is caught up in a sweep by mistake?

None of those questions have simple answers. That many more could and have been listed by other members of the community point to this policy being at best slapdash, and at worst, a hamfisted crackdown with the intent to silence and sanitize campus discourse. Making a decision to police activity incentivizes the policing body to find any small infraction, which would then be used to silence or remove protest; this is a known commodity of policed systems, as evidenced by a ripe history of police injustice in the United States. I have no desire to see Cornell become a place where students are double- or triple-checking themselves before leaving their dorm, to ensure that they would not be seen as being in violation of an opaque and inflexible policy.

At its core, protest is a disruptive activity. If the idea of acceptable protest is an ignoreable protest, one that does not provide a challenge, is scheduled in advance, and can be easily removed from view, then the culture being established is one where it is unacceptable to protest.

Let us engage with a thought experiment.
If protest is unacceptable due to disruptive effects, how then will concerns with Cornell's policies be voiced? Other commenters in this have noted the role of sustained student pressure that brought Cornell to the table on sustainable energy. Large institutions with financial stake are often loathe to change their positions, for fear of losing money or rich investors, but sometimes these changes are necessary to preserve or to create a world worth living in.
So, if protests like those held during the Kyoto Protocols would now likely be in violation, how would students be able to exercise their voice? Would students be able to have voting power on Cornell's board, perhaps? Would Cornell open all policy decisions to a vote by the whole community, staff and students alike?

If protests are disallowed, there needs to be another avenue to expression. This is non-negotiable. Without a way to voice concerns and create change, the medium of protest will move elsewhere that could prove even more disruptive, probably in an online dimension.

And to be clear; this is written by someone who was horrified at the threat of an active shooter on campus this past year, one who expressed interest in targeting my community. Policing protest activity does not make anyone safer; just ask the city of Portland, OR how well their increased crackdown on protests has gone.
The tension on campus will not be solved by making students unable to express themselves; when people can't express themselves one way, they will turn to other ways that may be more dangerous. From my experience, I have seen greater deescalation as a result of dinners and dialogues than I have from forbidding student activism; I'd rather time and effort go into chances to talk with one another, than into obtuse policies with incredible risk to harm vulnerable groups.

I want to take this opportunity to lament the absence of any mention of a big elephants in the room: the intimidation and censorship of Chinese students on our campus, carried out by the Chinese regime through on-campus monitoring coupled with direct and indirect harassment of dissident Chinese students and their families at home. Secrecy is, of course, the hallmark of the Chinese authorities, but the pattern is well known from many US campuses and it starts with consulate (= Communist Party) control of the 'Chinese student and scholars associations' and Communist Party members forming cells, and proceeds from there with monitoring and reporting of dissenting students -- Purdue U is, famously, one of the campuses where this has burst into the open, https://propublica.org/article/purdue-president-condemns-tactics-used-to-censor-chinese-students-on-u-s-campuses ; at Columbia, something happened that made the administration go so far as to disband the CSSA, it was done in secret with no media reporting, but may have involved the CSSA going too far even for permissive US campus administrators who prefer to close an eye to these on-campus operations. At Cornell we know of the incident when a student tired of the situation of a tightly controlled and pro-government politicized "student club" told some friends he was going to start a new a-political Chinese social club -- but before he could even start organizing it, he was called up on his private cell phone and was directly discouraged by the consulate minders, who had obtained his number from their agents on our campus grounds. All around, we here of incidents of students detained at home for things they said on social media abroad; Cornell maintains an account on the heavily state-monitored and censored Chinese WeChat platform, encouraging Cornellians to sign up and participate there, with no warnings whatsoever that if you say anything, you better make sure you're not criticizing the regime, its genocide of the Uyghurs, its crushing of democracy in Hong Kong, or the like; but if we're maintaining such an account, why don't we even warn Cornell students to keep any opinions to themselves, if they are on there? Is that we feel safe that everyone is already properly educating to be silent and not speak their mind?   

--Several times, I have communicated this situation to the Cornell administration and to the university president, to suggest remedies, but there are no replies and no mention of the Chinese "elephant" in any of the administration-arranged free speech events al this year. The top members of our university's administration are often in China, wined and dined by the very regime that intimidates our students, and I have never heard of them either objecting to the Chinese government authorities' presence and actions on our campus, or of the atrocities under way in today's genocide China. Perhaps they are protective of the deep financial and business ties to China entertained by Cornell and/or its board members; this linkage is perhaps best symbolized by the Cornell administration's 'China center' which for years has listed the boss of Tencent as an advisor to Cornell -- this is the boss of one of the companies most deeply involved in the Uyghur genocide, in setting up the largest ethno-racist profiling program anywhere in the world, and enabling the genocide launched in 2017 -- concidentally, without a single word about it from Cornell.

Thinking about our Chinese students in this context, we should remember above all that many of our Chinese students came to the US hoping that here, they might now have the freedom of speech they are denied at home. But, no. The censorship goes on in upstate NY, in NYC, and all over. "They" are here, "they" win, and we do ... nothing? Say nothing? Or even try to cover it up by pretending silence is a "cultural preference"?

BTW, as for the new policy restricting protests: a ban on anonymous protest is obviously not going to help with the "elephant" I am talking about here 

Magnus Fiskesjö (student of things Chinese, since 1977; but due to the recent lawless kidnappings, no longer a visitor to China)

The release of these “policies” the very same year that the administration is touting free speech is Orwellian. Cornell has a long and robust tradition of civic engagement. These policies solve problems that do not exist and were undoubtedly developed at the behest of reactionary donors wanting to restrict particular viewpoints. Inevitably these minutiae based policies will result in viewpoint discrimination in their enforcement. It’s not too late to admit a mistake and reverse the implementation of these poorly constructed, anti democratic policies.

The expressive activity policy in its current state, aligns itself with dominant white perspectives on the appropriate ways to express opinion and particularly dissent. It expressly prohibits activities that have been used by communities of color, especially Black communities, to conduct protest. In particular, the registration of all indoor expressive activities allows for them to be regulated by Cornell, disallowing sit ins and other peaceful methods that are unable to achieve university sanction. Of course, the natural response is that those activities would likely be approved, but this is rarely the case when a large institution with significant clout and financial backing from opposing forces meets with a comparatively small group of individuals with impassioned beliefs but limited power. As it is, this policy provides numerous ways for the University to curtail the expression of individuals who do not align with its mission. Unfortunately instead of addressing the harm done to Jewish students particularly through heinous online threats last semester, this policy curtails the ability of all students to gather and peacefully protest without fear of retribution. 

As many have expressed, the new policy continues down the path of overpolicing dissent to the point of rendering the supposedly revered style of nonviolent protest completely without teeth. As a cap to this, I'd like to specifically call out the new policy that limits outdoor protest encampments to less than one week. There are significant historical moments at Cornell in which encampments (whether indoor or outdoor) were used in an attempt to protest and sway University policy. Many are even documented with apparent pride on Cornell Websites—the lasting positive changes after the Willard Straight Hall takeover in 1969, for instance. I also recall sit-ins and outdoor encampments that successfully led to Darfur divestments or the ones that attempted to encourage divestment from Apartheid South Africa. Cornell University cannot only uphold the beauty of student protest to render positive change in retrospect. Under current policies, the ability to affectively demonstrate against University actions is essentially nil. And any upholding of historic protest is a hypocitical spit in the face to any students currently dreaming of a more just future on our campus.

I have lots of concerns about the postering regulations, but these are foremost: posters larger than 8.5x11 need to be made of flame-retardant material? And there will be fees charged if posters are left up for more than two weeks after an event? Who will be policing all of these bulletin boards and determining who to fine? Seems pretty heavy-handed.

I find it regrettable that Cornell has decided to crack down on all the outlets that its community members have for expressing dissent — in the year of free speech, no less. Unfortunately, I am not surprised by this development: it follows the pattern set by virtually every municipality and police force in this country (regardless of the political affiliation, because of course both parties answer to the same corporate overlords). In this matter, Cornell follows the usual liberal path to fascism: lip service to freedom, accompanied by its consistent erosion as the Overton window shifts to the right in response to right-wing gaslighting, propaganda, and media manipulation. It's one thing to prohibit Nazis from posting to the bulletin boards; it's another thing to use that (entirely marginal) threat as an excuse to limit everyone's freedom of expression. And of course the new policy is handed down by diktat (the "town hall" where only softball questions vetted ahead of time are allowed is a fig leaf).

p.s. I also find this funny (not in a good way):

"Please note: Your name will not be shown with your comment, but it will be stored in the system and viewable by site administrators." lol

I'll make sure that my expressive activity is unseen and unheard by anyone! I wouldn't want to disturb anyone's "peaceful use and enjoyment of the university"! I'll make sure that my posters and art are so small that no one will notice if they say something at all! And I'll make sure that I speak really quietly so that the future bomb-building engineering students can study! I really wouldn't want anyone at Cornell to have to confront the death and murder that its investments are funding! We're just measly staff and students. We should really keep our voices quiet and respectful, since Cornell is just such a wonderful and beautiful place to study! We really wouldn't want anyone to start questioning that lovely, peaceful campus that allows students to haze their fellow students to death, or loses students to suicide every semester because it fails to offer adequate mental health help! Oh no no, we shouldn't really say anything too loud, Cornell really shouldn't have to bother with our voices at all! We should make our expressive activity really unbothersome so that it's easier to ignore!! 

Cornell makes staff information too public to begin with.

Heck you used to make home addresses standard in the directory by default.

It has put our images right into our emails and calendars.

Direct numbers and emails are available to the public, often bypassing "main office" contact info.

Even non-public facing staff can be subject to having our work space made public.

This create a risk for staff, who can be targeted by anyone or group with a grudge, as we have seen with project veritas, and targeted social media posts.

The push to use ring central and personal phones put us at further risk

I dissent, I dissent, I dissent. For all the reasons already shared. RBG is surely reeling.

As they stand, these policies do not provide a platform for freedom of expression. If anything, this is a form of censoring and silencing of students, faculty and staff. There is no way to uphold a "content-neutral" approach while taking "disciplinary action" against anyone who creates the most minor inconvenience on Cornell's campus. To restrict where one can post, when one can speak, and how loud they may speak, is not freedom of expression.

Putting aside, for a moment, the significant restrictions of political speech that this policy will implement, one of the core issues that the university administration will find itself very quickly entangled in is the question of its "unbiased" enforcement, because it presents a paradox that is, coincidentally, also reflective of many authoritarian systems. 
On the one hand, the university administration assures us (and did so again this morning in the staff town hall) that this policy of expressive activity is "content-free" (a somewhat bizarre choice of words in regard to political protest, but which apparently is meant to signal that the policy will be applied "equally" regardless of the content of speech). 
However, when asked about what types of speech will be restricted/policed/curtailed, the administration states that this policy will "only" target content and speech that "some members of the university perceive as offensive, disruptive, or harassment." In other words, there is no objective policy in place to determine what actually counts as harassment or disruption; no, the university treats as "harassment" or "offensive" what "some members of the community" (aka donors, student parents) "perceive" as harassment. 
It must be obvious to everyone that this policy thus benefits groups that have enough social or financial capital to feel safe about speaking up, and further discriminates those already at risk. 
As we have learned in the past weeks/months, the university considers it a legitimate grievance for pro-Israel members of the community to feel harassed or offended by various protests against Israel's illegal occupation and genocide in Palestine (both are currently subject two 2 different trials in front of the ICJ, one should add, in case the Cornell administration missed the news). Let's put aside the political discourse underlying this conflict, since "right" or "wrong" shouldn't matter for a "content-free" policy. So does it follow, then, that members of the community who sympathize with Putin should be given equal consideration if they voice their concerns about vocal and public expressions of solidarity with Ukraine? Will the university consider it a legitimate grievance if members of evangelical student organizations "feel" "harassed" by the presence of visibly queer students or faculty on campus? Can atheist students, in turn, make a case that they "feel" "harassed" by expressively religious symbols displayed on campus? Will the university tear down the chapel if enough people are offended by its presence?

"Feeling" harassed or offended should not be the guiding principle for restricting speech, since anyone can feel offended by anything, and a policy that is supposedly "content-free" cannot, by definition, treat some "feelings" as more valid than others. Yet this is exactly what the administration has been doing by treating some "feelings of harassment" as legitimate but not others. So clearly its policies and their enforcement are not "content-free" at all. Which begs the question what determines the validity of certain "feelings" over others for the leadership of this university. 

Let's face it, there are no campus political protests that are as much of a risk to "health and safety" of students as Fraternity Rush, and as "disruptive" to the university's "everyday operations" as Slope Day. At least I cannot recall students tragically passing away, or having to be airlifted to a hospital, due to a political protest on campus during my time at Cornell. 

Staff are extremely concerned about how this policy affects us, and this morning's town hall only exacerbated those concerns. Be your authentic self, but Cornell won't protect you. If you get DOXXED, you're on your own, but here's a website? If you state your opinions away from Cornell and don't identify yourself as having a role with Cornell, and someone reports your actions back to Cornell, an unnamed entity with no policy in place will determine if your actions prevent you from performing your job and may grounds for dismissal? Staff doesn't have the protections of tenure, and this policy effectively removes our constitutional right to free speech - even away from campus. 

This is probably not lost on many of the commenters here, so I probably don't need to say it, but I'm going to anyway because free speech is allowed still. Remember that time in 1969 when "members of the Afro-American Society (AAS) occupied Willard Straight Hall" to protest racism at Cornell? As a refresher, here's your own article about it: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2009/04/campus-takeover-symbolized-era-change. The use of weapons notwithstanding, this protest was necessary, and the event was a pivotal moment in Cornell's history that propelled it into an "era of change," and it significantly contributed to the overall civil rights movement. That photo in the article won a Pulitzer Prize, for goodness' sake, and Cornell is somewhat respected and known for civil disobedience. Are you telling us now that such change is not necessary or welcome here anymore? Certainly, not. I exaggerate slightly to make a point, but it would seem to observers that the university, with this policy, isn't far from banning such activities in the future, effectively closing the doors to the progress it could make. Caution seems appropriate advice here. You're treading in darker waters now where it would be impossible for students, faculty, and especially staff members to protest, for example, the rise of antisemitism, racism, all forms of bigotry, or authoritarian government (real threats at this time). Are we now expected to be ok with the status quo and keep our mouths shut for the sake of decorum? People in 1960 didn't do that, and this country is on a slippery slope as it is now, so we shouldn't either. It's worth a little discomfort to make positive change, don't you think? With this policy, you are stripping away any tread protests might have to gain any traction. You are turning your backs on the civil disobedience and the blood, sweat, and tears of the people who came before us and fought for a brighter future and won. Your forebearers are rolling in their graves.

While I'm not unhinged about this policy, I am quite concerned about what this policy means for our future, the possibilities of scope creep in its enforcement, and setting a precedent that other schools might hold in high regard and follow to suppress and oppress their communities.

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the many thoughtful contributions to this important policy conversation. I would like to raise a question about the potential impact on technology research & entrepreneurship.

The policy currently says that "The use of university resources for expressive activities is restricted to Cornellians and to sponsored university guests." It also says that expressive activities include "the distribution of information and other means of communicating viewpoints and opinions." As someone who does research involving the creation and maintenance of social technologies and AI, I'm interested in clarification on whether the policy creates the risk of restrictions to research and entrepreneurship.

Many of us do publicly-engaged research that uses Cornell resources to facilitate the online communications of other people. For example, the Lab of Ornithology runs a platform that people use to make public statements about birds. Arxiv runs a platform that scientists all over the world use to conduct expressive activities. In recent memory, Cornell digital platforms have been a major pathway for citizens to express their opinions to federal agencies in public consultations on regulations. Many Cornell startups have used university resources to create social tech platforms that the public can use to interact with one another—and which are an important part of Cornell's IP licensing programs. My own lab does research on digital discourse, for example by facilitating the expressions of thousands of Wikipedians.

In all of those cases, it's impossible and undesirable for us to pre-approve every person who uses our digital infrastructure for communication, or to review in advance what they have to say. I have raised this issue with General Counsel's office. I'm mentioning it here as well, in case it can inform the faculty conversation.

--Dr. J. Nathan Matias
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
Field Member, Information Science

I listened to the Town Hall from last week.  I think it did a good job of conveying the spirit / intent of the new policy.  I understand that we need a policy to be compliant with applicable laws, that drafting a policy was not a response to recent political events, that it was long overdue given the change in the student code of conduct and that a new, centrally articulated and coherently explained policy will do a much better job of "encouraging" the right kind of behavior.  For example, making it very clear what kinds of events have to registered in what way will reduce the likelihood that protests are disruptive.  

That said, I feel that the presentation, as well as the accompanying documents, are not really addressing the underlying question: what, exactly, is different? I see that the administration has shared this comparison chart:.  But this chart is just showing two forms of legalese next to each other.  I doubt that most people who are not lawyers or law students can tell the difference in what these mean.  

I am requesting a simple set of scenarios be included with the chart, or otherwise articulated.  These would be of the form:

"Under the old policy, this was allowed.  Now, under the new policy, this is not allowed."

"Under the old policy, this was allowed.  Now, under the new policy, this is not allowed."

"Under the old policy, this was not allowed.  Now, under the new policy, this is allowed."

"Under the old policy, this was required.  Now, under the new policy, this is not required."

"Under the old policy, this was required.  Now, under the new policy, this is not required."

"Under the old policy, this was not required.  Now, under the new policy, this is required."

Naming such changes in concrete terms would go a long way toward providing some transparency.  I understand that there are many aspects of the policy -- the spirit, the goals, what it "encourages" or aims for -- that are not captured by these blunt comparisons.  But we don't need to approve a formal policy to have a spirit. We need a policy because we are planning to rule out some behaviors and rule in others.  We need to understand exactly what those are if we are to make a reasonable judgment about the policy's appropriateness and feasibility.

In reading the new Interim Policy, the document outlining the changes/conformation to older documents, and several pages of these comments, it would be useful in the final policy to have distinctions between the following elements, at least in the physical domain (direct people and spaces):

• We can clarify differences between speech designed to communicate/advocate a viewpoint in a closed setting (e.g. a hosted speaker in a lecture hall), with speech designed to disrupt/stop said speech (e.g. heckling/interrupting inside said room, speaking contrary speech outside the time for questions, etc.). If we are evangelizing free inquiry and speech in an era of extreme polarization, more speech is better, rather than efforts at cancelling speech. To me, the key features of an invited guest by a university organization, a closed indoor space, etc. can demarcate this former speech to be affirmed/protected vs. the latter. While the interim and old policies appear to support this principle, in practice it has not been followed - especially given the uniqueness of these situations. One only need to fluster or block the speaker for that fixed time to succeed in stopping speech. Clarity between these speech types would help develop expectations and consequences for our community. 
• Protest speech, especially outdoors and in/around administrative buildings is a different ballgame as those elaborating in other posts, and can be subject to entirely different rules. Again, there can be certain expectations and consequences elaborated for these as different from the point above. Silencing protest is disastrous to our community, but so is physical violence especially when it affects bystanders and employed staff for which crowd management is not their role or training. There should be an expectation for university administrators to have plans and training to handle protests constructively, not necessarily the other way around. Repression is not a substitute. Further, there should be expectations for counter-protests, and how to manage those, rather than their prevention. I see daylight between these activities and those above. 
• It should be clarified that if an administrative body is deliberating/voting on policy in an indoor meeting, protest outside is reasonable. It could be put into rules that a vote is not legal/binding unless held where/when such opportunity was present. 
• The Provost and Interim Policy identified that organizers should 1) register these events with administrators, and 2) develop a plan to provide safety in collaboration with the university. While Cornell has had some success in bringing diverse viewpoint speakers to campus, it would be informative if they could review these previous registrations and present data on how well this policy has worked, and whether it has been equally effective for polarizing viewpoints. If such data doesn't exist, it could offer a survey for people to record examples to review. It could be that claimed that this registration only enhances the risk to the event by its disclosure, especially if management plans are also disclosed. If we measure policy effectiveness by the diverse speech actually taking place and safely, perhaps that can be a barometer of our support for it. 
• Resourcing of management and protection for speech events could itself be chilling of speech if it is the responsibility of the club for paying for something based on the unpredictable actions of others. It could also be managed relative to the speech types above based on setting clear expectations and consequences for those attending and those wishing to disrupt. We shouldn't have to be a police state to welcome diverse speech, as that is also chilling of a vibrant diverse community. There can be registration, seating, etc. for those electing to attend a speech, which can also manage Cornell vs. outside attenders. Of course, this needs to be protected against Doxing, but such info doesn't need to be stored after the event completes. 

In re-reading the article about the 1969 protests, I appreciate both the significance of that event in Cornell and National history, and the disruption to learning that was incurred. Just like with Covid-19, Cornell survived, and potentially has thrived based on how we handled the events. In both cases, it's not just the days of the event, but long, steady progress. I also have read parallel accounts from diverse viewpoints of both events at Cornell. It seems in both events, considering the circumstance of who is most encumbered by the policy is a better lens for determining its effectiveness than how much administrative headache it would require.

I attended the recent staff town hall regarding the expressive activity policy, and I want to start by saying that I do understand *why* Cornell feels this action was necessary. Like any institution, they have to remain neutral on most issues -- abiding by the opinions of stakeholders, donors, parents, etc. 

HOWEVER, I do want the university to imagine the larger consequences of these policies; as many commenters have already brought up, it will undoubtedly result in fewer students organizing at all in fear of experiencing disciplinary action. It might even cause the remaining students who DO still want to protest to be frustrated, and organize in more violent ways. It all just feels counter-intuitive. 

Reading through the interim expressive activity policy, the ultimate feeling that I get from it is that Cornell believes even peaceful protests are a nuisance and need to be contained to ensure there are zero disruptions to students' learning. And in response to that, I say: for the, at MOST, hours of audible or spatial disruption that might occur during a peaceful protest, is that really such a dramatic loss if we, as a result, experience progress within the institution (stale and unchanging as they often are)? The Cornell community has clearly reaped the benefits of protests in the past, as the majority of commenters have pointed out (not to mention one of the first values on their website being "Free and Open Inquiry and Expression"), so why restrict and suppress them now?

A disruption may be a little annoying for some, but if we don't allow that ripple of democratic liberty to occur how can we expect the young adults that attend this institution to be agents of positive social and political change when they go out into the world? How can the university adapt and connect to this new generation -- one that cares for the lives and freedoms of civilians both near and far? 

Last thing: if employees now have to call public safety officers on any kind of protest that occurs in forbidden indoor areas, are those officers being trained on how to actually de-escalate protests? Do they understand the forms of trauma that many organizers might have with police depending on their race or class status, and therefore know not to approach students/staff/faculty organizing with unneeded force? These are things I HOPE are being discussed behind closed doors before finalizing this policy. 

It is very clear that this policy exists for the benefit of outside observers. Congressional observers, donors, parents of students... in essence, it exists for people who do not actually participate in the on-campus conversations. Cornell should not cower from the development, education, and voices of its own students, faculty, and staff because the people who already have money, power, and voices are uncomfortable. That is not the university I want to be a part of. Cornell was not founded to be subservient to the political whims of its monied interests. Cornellians should be allowed to criticize Cornell in effective, nonviolent ways.
 

It is highly disingenuous to say that you just realized that candles were a safety hazard. The banning of candlelight vigils is one of the more obviously politically motivated moves in this document, but there are plenty more. 'Disruptive activity' is already not allowed on campus-- this policy just reiterates that the current protests are unwelcome and the university wants them to be disempowered.

Finally, the town hall was a bit of a joke, to be honest. Please don't read pre-written statements-- they show you aren't considering our concerns or engaging in dialogue with us, you are only going to stick to HR talking points.

I was dismayed by the repeated use of the word "clarity" at the staff town hall, while panelists engaged in vague and non-specific discussion of how staff may be affected by the new policy (and by political speech at work and outside of work more broadly).  I see that others have articulated concerns with the focus on "disruption," so I'll focus my feedback on my concern with the ideas of "content neutral" policy application and the concept of an employee potentially "feeling harassed" by messages or materials displayed by other employees.  It's alarming that panelists mentioned that what staff are allowed to say or display in the workplace is specific to their unique situation/workspace.  Panelists mentioned that the policy isn't engaged unless someone has a problem with another staff member's speech, and that it depends on what may make someone "feel harassed" (this was - case in point - extremely vague in its delivery).  It seems ridiculous that anyone could report feeling harassed by anything, and I'm especially concerned about representations of diversity and difference.  What if, for example, I were to display a pride flag or "safe space" sign in my office, and what if someone with homophobic or transphobic opinions felt harassed by that?  Is my LGBTQ+ identity not a protected minority status, and could a "content neutral" application of this policy not ask me to closet myself at work?  I would like to see clarification of how this policy and the comments about employees "feeling harassed" interacts with the bias and harassment policy.  I would like to see clarification of what "context neutral" means in relation to hate speech and/or protected minority status.

I agree with the many commenters who have posted clear and detailed feedback about the ways in which the interim policy stifles freedom of expression. I also second the criticism of the staff town hall held last week, during which the information provided was vague, frustrating, and even scary, because staff were left with the impression that if any member of the Cornell community claims to have experienced harassment because of speech we expressed in our private lives, we cannot expect to be supported or protected by our employer.

I would also like to state the obvious, which is that this policy was announced in the wake of, and includes several provisions that appear to specifically target, protests held on Cornell's campus to draw attention to the deaths of 30,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the displacement of a million more. The Cornell community, as with many university communities, has a long tradition of protesting crimes against humanity in the US and around the world. Why do such protests at the current moment, particularly in Cornell's theme year on freedom of expression, result in an unprecedented restriction of freedom of speech on our campus? I was particularly troubled, during the town hall, when a video was shown of a protest in Mann Library. The protest was framed as an obvious negative disruption, but no one at the town hall noted that the student leading the protest was reading aloud the names of Palestinian children who have been murdered. I do not support policies which define public acknowledgement of these horrible and unwarranted deaths a "disruption."