Contain your anger at the zygote for a moment, if you can, and listen to the facts. Those outside libertarians would be FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), a national org that aims to “defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities” and to “protect the unprotected [...heh] and to educate the public and communities of concerned Americans about the threats to these rights on our campuses and about the means to preserve them.”

So what brought these dudes’ gaze to Cornell? I’d say Elena the Unborn Fetus invited them, but that would be gauche. (Like the signs themselves? Cringe.) Suffice it to say that there was a wee little debacle when, on the morning of Oct 22, an administrative assistant named Dawn Warren confiscated the Cornell Coalition for Life’s “Elena” signs on the Engineering Quad a mere hour after they had been put up. The Coalition for Life had gone through all the necessary Big Red tape to post these signs and even posted their approval form on the back of the first sign in the series, but Warren, who thought the display “inappropriate” on sight, removed them anyway. The kicker: after a member of the group argued with the assistant and her boss — who claimed there was an “unwritten policy” that prevented sign-postings not related to Engineering — the Cornell Police had to be called in to reinstall the signs.

Since FIRE got wind [heh?] of the debacle, the principled group has taken on the pro-lifers’ cause as just another smelly example of “the stench of disdain for expressive rights on the Cornell campus” and publicized it: it’s mentioned in a UWIRE story, Politico has the Daily Sun’s report up, as does the liberal site the New Republic. Just you wait — Ann Coulter will definitely be gay pregnant with this shit if it proves, um, fertile.

What really incenses FIRE is not the fact that pro-lifers were given a voice but the fact that Cornell admins dealt with the situation so poorly. In a statement to the entire Cornell community, Tommy Bruce, the University’s PR flack, played it off as an “honest mistake.” Dean of Engineering (the Provost-elect who might be pro-life!) Kent Fuchs apologized for the embarrassing incident and vowed to “clarify our official policy and how it will be enforced.” Misrepresenting what happened as damage control, it seems, will only make FIRE more intent on cataloging this particular incident among the administrative censure that they perceive as so pervasive in higher education. In a rousing email to their troops, they listed the Cornell instance among a similar incident at Missouri State University as an “ominous threat to liberty”:

You may be wondering how administrators at MSU and Cornell responded to these instances of censorship. They did nothing. By failing to act, they are promoting a “heckler’s veto,” which gives the least tolerant members of the college community the power to control the flow of discourse. Even worse, by failing to correct this type of censorship, they are promoting a dangerous misapprehension among their campus communities—that the First Amendment somehow grants individuals the right to destroy the expression of others as a means of exercising their own freedom of expression. With administrators unwilling to stop this vigilante censorship, *FIRE needs your help now more than ever in our fight to protect freedom of expression.*

What nobody has stopped to do is examine why the content of the signs is offensive *besides the fact that they’re pro-life.* I think it’s because the concept is straight-up tasteless. What offends my sensibilities, to be clear, is not the images of the fetus but the clumsy captions next to them. I am all for this beauty of life shit when it’s on the Discovery Channel with epic panning around the fetus and David Attenborough narrating in that amazing British accent of his. Were I a woman, these images would probably make me tell myself I would never get an abortion. (Even as a man, I lie to myself all too often.) But the captions, which put infantile phrases in the half-developed mouth of an “unborn child,” are tragically unconvincing (and comically entertaining) to anyone above the age of 6, let alone well-educated college students.

And as for all wrong things at Cornell, we have Harvard to blame for “Elena.” A 2006 Harvard Crimson Magazine article said the campaign actually worked, insofar as sparking debate on the issue was the goal:

The Crimson began running Op-ed pieces on abortion—inspiring several students and alumni to respond via letters—Students for Choice (SFC) reorganized and brought in new leadership, and a group of students from both the pro-life and pro-choice sides recently established the Abortion Policy Group Study at the IOP, whose findings are soon to be published. But as the on-campus debate slowly began, the “poster child” for abortion suddenly disappeared.

Good for you, Harvard. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here, where our admins think they have to take care of everything for us. There haven’t been any editorials published in the Sun and those paying any attention at all are talking about how Cornell admins totally shat on the pro-lifers’ message, not the message itself. Pictures of the entire series of signs below.

Anyway, his professional credentials seem stellar at a glance. In his six year tenure as Dean of the largest engineering program in the Ivy League, nobody seems to have had any major beef with him. MetaEzra reports: “I’m not entirely qualified to comment on Fuch’s qualifications for the job, suffice to say that he was re-appointed for the Engineering deanship and Martin thought highly of him.” There is, however, one thing about Fuchs that’s a bit out of the norm: he received a master of divinity degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1984, a year before he got his Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois. Why this might short-circuit a few lightbulbs in our mind after the jump.

There’s of course the obvious question of whether Fuchs holds some of those more notorious evangelical beliefs, you know, like the whole God hates fags thing. Just to sample a taste of what other Trinity alums believe in, check out this fire and brimstone video of a sermon from Rick Lazarias MDiv ‘76, who respectfully disagrees with evolution on the basis of a lack of fossil evidence:

There is no evidence to say that his beliefs are anywhere near as radical as Zacharias, and it’s inconceivable that he would’ve risen so high up the academic ladder if he were an evolution-denier or an anti-intellectual in any capacity. But as an administrator of a large research university there might be problems concerning his personal feelings about hot issues like stem cell research. In an article examining his unusual combination of engineering and religion, he hinted at being pro-life:

Religious beliefs can also con­flict with technological progress. “Technology is like religion,” Fuchs says. “It can be of enormous good to society, or it can be misused.” One possible example: the current debate over whether the U.S. government should fund research on embryonic stem cells. But on this issue, Fuchs sits squarely on the fence. Stem cells could potentially help society, he acknowledges, but there are “issues around unborn children and abortion.”

While his personal views quite frankly do not matter as long as he keeps them to himself and doesn’t let them influence his administrative decisions, what sort of a face does this put on Cornell? Could the installation of a conservative theist (who was almost a preacher) be a response to conservative caricaturing of Biddy Martin’s as the paragon of the academic “liberal elite”? The answers lie safely guarded with the Board of Trustees and their friends at the University, but maybe that doesn’t matter either.

What matters is that the guy is a competent administrator, which seems to be the case and will likely continue to be the case. By most accounts, he’s a nice old guy with an intriguing past, a past that he even jokes about:

“If I were a better preacher, I’d be in a different career now,” laughs Dr. W. Kent Fuchs (MDiv ‘84), dean of the College of Engineering at Cornell University.

It was in homiletics class, when Kent couldn’t refrain from the use of transparencies during a sermon, that he realized perhaps God wanted him to teach instead of preach. “I was near the bottom of my class—I was terrible at preaching. But I was a good educator. I thought maybe I’d work in a university with college students.”

Later on in this article from Trinity’s alumni magazine, he states that his priestly past informs his academic present for the better:

And how does a Master of Divinity fit into the world of Cornell engineering? “I’m very, very glad I went to seminary,” Kent says, reflecting back on that Baptist minister who long ago convinced him of the merits. “I gained knowledge that I could not have picked up on my own, about church history and theology. The breadth of the MDiv is really quite powerful. It’s enabled me to be more involved in teaching and leadership at church. And then there are the practical skills I gained—public speaking, effective teaching, and counseling.”

We hope he glosses over church history and theology in his administrative capacity at Cornell. But the practical stuff? Fuchs def needs to turn that lightbulb on bright.

After the group snowballed up and down the rows, they made their way over to the Review’s table and chanted a little about how Cornell must make them go away. And then some guy with a loudspeaker started talking, but I wasn’t really listening. There was a CoPo keeping the peace WHILE sucking on a lollipop (such talent!), and I tried to take a cell phone picture of him but I fucked it up. Anyway, their specific gripes (which a sweaty guy with a clipboard distributed before the “march” to random tables including Kitsch’s, urging us to fight the good fight with him) are after the jump. Also after the jump: why their gripes don’t really make too much sense.

[UPDATE (9/13): Before I get a flood of angry commenters, I want to let people know that I do not support in any way or form the Review. I am sorry that this post comes off like I'm shitting on activists, I'm not. I respect what you're doing here but believe that it's a bit misguided and needs to get its facts straight concerning the Cornell name and ask the administration to do something about the Review with a legitimate claim (aka please check their masthead for a disclaimer, I don't have a copy handy). Please take this into consideration before you post comments.]

This is the text of the flyer (if you can call it that, it was actually just a Microsoft Word doc) the sweaty clipboard man gave out. On the front side is a pseudo-article citing various shit the Review said in their freshman issue:

“RACISM RUNS RAMPANT AT CORNELL

The Cornell Review says:

“…it’s impossible to ignore the nasty, ignorant, and bitter members of the minority community who constantly whine about the brutal oppression they suffer at the hands of whitey. Apparently, part of this oppression involves their admittance to an Ivy League institution, likely as a recipient of affirmative action and scholarships.”

AND

“These reapers of racial rage seclude themselves inside their ethnic ghettos (be it [program houses] Ujamaa, Latino Living Center, or Akwe;kon.” [I don't know whose sic that is, but the semicolon should be just a colon.]

AND

“America has bigger fish to fry, like Abu al-Qaeda and Nawaf bin Taliban.”

AND

“Muslim inbredding in Europe may be link to transatlantic flight clampdown.”

AND

“…political ideology is genetically linked…an arranged marriage between families of radical Islamists, who hate everything about freedom and democracy results in offspring who hate twice as much…”

Here’s the second page, where they present their meticulously thought-out argument:

“This is not politics, this is blatant RACISM. The Cornell Review/Cornell American has intentionally and maliciously published racist propaganda during opening weekend that berates, offends, makes insecure, and intimidates students, especially freshmen.”

Did I miss something here? I didn’t see any pejoratives hurled at scurrilous freshmen overpopulating the good streets of Collegetown or even at students in general. (I know it wasn’t only freshmen littering my lawn with discarded Keystone cans.) Don’t they mean that the Review’s speech offends and attempts to intimidate them personally, them being mostly people living at Watermargin co-op and residents of program houses? (They’re the ones who met yesterday to discuss this whole thing anyway.)

“We can not tolerate this on our campus.

Can the Cornell Administration?

Can you?

Enough is enough.

Find the Cornell Review/Cornell American’s table at Club Fest and tell them you DO NOT want HATE SPEECH targeted at or representing the Cornell Community.”

Find me an instance where the Review purports to represent the Cornell community, and I’ll give you a dollar.

“Tell Cornell how you feel TODAY! Email Julie Paige (jlp10@cornell.edu) and Lynette Chappel-Williams (lc75@cornell.edu) to file a bias related incident report.

Cornell University provides specific authorization and written permission to the Cornell Review/Cornell American to use the Cornell Name. Tell Kent Hubbell you are shocked and ashamed of Cornell’s  endorsement of this racism and demand that Cornell Name authorization be revoked IMMEDIATELY! (dean_of_students@cornell.edu).”

Um, okay… I really don’t see the problem here. “Cornell” is in the title of the publication because it’s based at Cornell University and because there are tons of other publications called the Review. The general idea is not that this great and illustrious university is itself licensing their “shameful” publication; the name is there for mainly locational and conventional reasons. (If any commenters yell at me for defending the Review, please die promptly.)

You know, I’ve heard of this other shameful campus publication that uses the Cornell Name too: The Cornell Progressive! Take a look at their Web site–their use of Comic Sans in a headline (bold-faced, no less!) represents ALL THAT IS WRONG WITH THIS WORLD. They are shaming the Cornell Name with their typographical blasphemy!

Anyway, the official policy states that “Use of the name ‘Cornell University’ or ‘Cornell,’ in publication titles or organization names implying or tending to imply some official connection with the university, is prohibited except with the written permission of the university and under such restrictions and explanations as it may impose.” So there you go folks. OFFICIAL CONNECTION. The Review has never purported to be affiliated with the administration or faculty in any substantial way, so I think this claim is kaput. And would the university ever really license itself out to the Review? Srsly? What were their “restrictions”? “Don’t go too easy on them liberals! Yeehaw!”**

But there are other, real things to think about! The Review may or may not receive money from the SAFC (I’ve heard they have rich alums who donate so it might not be necessary), but that money is given out to publications with a VERY SPECIFIC STIPULATION (this is new, too, within the last year or so) that you put in your masthead a disclaimer stating that the views of the publication are TOTALLY not Cornell’s and that Cornell does not review what is being published. When I checked out the “About” page on thecornellreview.com (which by the way does not have any of the new stories up there), there’s no disclaimer. They ought to put that in there if they get money from the SAFC! Also, someone check their masthead, it should be in there too. Email dean_of_students@cornell.edu and let him know if it ain’t.

Lastly, people really ought to be up in arms about what a piss-poor layout the Review has. I’ll scan some and post them at a later date.

*One such sign, constructed on brown cardboard, said “STEREOTYP” on one side, which I thought was odd until I realized the other side said “STEREOTYPES ISOLATE.”

**I emailed the Dean of Students to check this shit out, just to make sure I’ve got my bases covered.

The meeting was convened in the wake of Douglas Lowe ’11’s drowning in the Fall Creek gorge. Presumably, the University Council Office is the Cornell University Council, “an organization of selected alumni and friends who are leaders in service to the University,” but it could also be “university council” a la Big Red Lawyers. And the two individuals who presided over the meeting were “Executive Vice President” (Stephen T. Golding, the Samuel W. Bodman Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration) and a “member of University Council.” Whenever there is a student death at Cornell since 2001, the source said, a meeting of this nature not as a witchhunt but as a way to seek preventative measures. In this case, it seems that an ugly fence was the preventative measure decided upon, at least for the time being. Some of the attendees (rightly) predicted that students would find ways around the fence, like the gaping holes that have popped up in recent days.

Whether or not the decision to put up the fence was truly unanimous is hard to tell. Considering that attendees predicted people would cut holes in the fence, it’s almost certain that there was at least some concern and perhaps some opposition. So at the end of the day, an angry mob of pasty Cornellians might have to ask for the heads of Stephen T. Golding and that random University Council member.

That angry mob might have more than just the fence to complain about: the University has shown an utter lack of transparency about the decision.  One admin at Environmental Health & Safety said that he was not involved but, sounding a little annoyed, that he also was “not authorized to talk to the press about any topic.” The Press Relations Office, however, has not released an official press release as they have for past gorge path closings. In fact, the only on-the-record comments from admins on the fence (from Press Relations Director Simeon Moss ‘73) exist on MetaEzra and the Daily Sun.

And the statements he has made are of a strange flavor. Consider his ultimatum on taking the fence down: “Fall Creek Gorge will be reopened when the community realizes the dangers of the gorge.” He demands of us, like a schoolmarm taking away our cigarettes, that we naughty college kids come to terms with the hazards of our extracurricular activities. If Cornell controlled the supply of alcohol in Ithaca, would they cut us off after a binge drinker alcohol poisoned him or herself?

It might be the administration itself that needs to realize the dangers of setting a precedent with their prohibitive, reactionary response to Doug Lowe’s death. There is certainly a possibility that his family pressured the University with legal action unless something was done, as was suggested to me by three officers on guard at the fence (who also told me inaccurately that two people had died swimming in the gorge this summer). Yet it’s in these highly charged situations where the University has the most stake and the best opportunity to hold true to their principles: as MetaEzra has pointed out, the principle that “Cornell never has been an institution of in loco parentis.”**

At the end of the day, will the “community” be required to take a GorgeEdu online course in order to matriculate? How will our level of “realization of danger” be quantified in any meaningful way? And how do we deal with the fact that college kids have always and will always take risks and do stupid shit?***

Maybe the fence is a way for the University to exhibit its sympathy to Doug’s death, or maybe just to show his family and friends that they’re listening. One poster, Elgguj, suggested on College Confidential that the University would need to do something only a week after his death:

“i think dragging out the issue is the only way to make sense of doug’s death. i wasnt as close to doug as [other College Confidential user] laurstar was, but the three of us all talked to each other and knew each other before we even got to campus our first day. we were all so dedicated to cornell. and to see cornell let down a great kid like doug is reason to drag the issue out for as long as it takes for someone to listen. cornell needs to get the message that gorge jumping/swimming needs to be made into a huge issue on campus. and students need to get the message that they should never chance their life to the gorges, no matter how skeptical they may be of the risks. and until that message is made crystal clear, i hope all of doug’s friends will keep talking about it.”

If this is the way the University wants to get the message about gorge safety out, they’re sending mixed signals; perhaps they’re–so to speak–on the fence. A fence is much too easily climbed over or cut through or toppled over. Something more permanent must be instituted, but the best idea is probably not, as elgguj suggested, education. It’s no secret that the gorges are potentially dangerous; but there are ways to mitigate that danger and people will always take risks.

The best solution will probably be lifeguards and student attendants at the Fall Creek gorge, along with proper signage that has a daily indicator of the water flow level. What better way to temper the danger of the gorge with prudence and to enjoy its natural beauty?

In any case, please don’t mistake my criticism of the University’s response as a criticism of Doug Lowe’s family. A memorial service for Doug Lowe is being held this Monday Sept. 1 at 6pm at a location to be announced. (Um, get on this Cornell?) To his family and friends, CornellWatch sends our condolences. We lost not a member of our community but also a fantastic dancer.

*The source said that in order to quote him/her on the record, we would have to conduct a separate “formal” interview. So know that these statements are pure business casual.

**If you doubt this, consider the fact that Cornell did not originally offer housing to male students, which is the reason nearly a third of the population is affiliated with Greek life. Or just picture Collegetown on Orientation Weekend.

***The source said that kids used to climb UNDER the old Thurston Ave. Bridge. Srsly!

This makes times quite trying for we students who did not write down our schedules before 1:30am the night before the first day of classes. And since some unnamed students did not get all the classes they wanted and a bag of potato chips in PreEnroll, some unnamed students are kinda pissed off. And so this colors their decision to send what would normally be a very peaceable and professional email to the evil-sounding UnivRegistrar@cornell.edu. After the jump, the offending email.

Send an angry email of your own to univreg@cornell.edu, just like the Schedge admins told you to! Seriously, do it. I did an interview with Ross Skaliotis, the creator of Schedulizer, a while back, but we never ran it in the magazine. Nonetheless, he was a really cool dude (a member of the rare breed of Cornell-to-Ithaca transfers, no less!) so you should have his back. I know I do.

UPDATE: Ross Skaliotis is indeed the creator of Schedulizer, but he sold it to some Cornell kids a little while back when he got an offer from Google.

“I am dismayed and outraged by this new cost increase,” said one student who happens to be myself. ”What’s next–$6 for a sandwich at Trillium?”

Some university administrators attempted to construct flimsy excuses defending the change, citing the expensive materials and skilled labor needed to produce Cornell IDs. “The ID department has been in the red for years,” said some lady at the office.”Mostly because of the first replacement ID is free.”

Pseudo-fake newsing aside, THIS IS SO FREAKING ANNOYING.