The Cornell College Republicans are claiming a member of the student government admitted to hoarding tickets to Vice President Dick Cheney’s talk scheduled for today.
According to The Cornell Daily Sun, the CRs claim Student Assembly member Marco Antonio Peralta-Ochoa had “approached members of the Cornell Republicans and admitted to collecting dozens of tickets ‘countless times’” in an effort to depress turnout.
The Sun says Peralta-Ochoa “did not confirm nor deny” the allegation, and declined further comment.
The CRs’ Weston Barker said “After I handed [Peralta-Ochoa] a ticket for the event, he told me that he was hoarding tickets. Throughout the conversation, he admitted to hoarding 88 tickets proudly and profusely. It was not a one-off thing. It was not a joke.”
Student Assembly member Gabe Kaufman was an eyewitness to the conversation and confirmed Barker’s testimony; however, he wasn’t sure about the “not a joke” part.
“I heard Marco say something like he was hoarding around a hundred or so tickets, but in my view, it was likely a tongue in cheek joke. I suppose we will find out tomorrow if one hundred seats are empty,” Kaufman told The Sun.
Call Auditorium has a capacity of 600 people, so roughly one-sixth of seats will be empty if Barker’s allegations are true.
Omar Din ’19, secretary for Islamic Alliance for Justice, a student organization leading the planned protest on Tuesday, denied that any other student organizations participating in the protest endorsed or are aware of the ticket swiping, to his knowledge.
However, Din did acknowledge that there were “rumors” that individual students may be operating without organizational approval to collect tickets out of their own initiative. …
“One of the most frustrating thing about people taking tickets is that, not only are people depriving other people of seeing the event, they are also creating a situation where you know, hurts us as we try to count up the number of people that attend the event,” [CR President Austin McLaughlin] said. “It’s kind of really pernicious.”
Michael Johns ’20, current Cornell Republicans treasurer and incoming president, lamented that there is little “enforceable security or screening” for ticket distribution and that individuals have “abused the availability of our tickets in the past” for tickets for the canceled March event as well.
Cheney’s scheduled talk in March was put off due to bad winter weather. Then, as now, the Islamic Alliance for Justice and other groups plan demonstrations outside of Kennedy Hall where the veep will appear.
The protest Facebook page states “Dick Cheney represents everything wrong with American imperialism. When he comes to campus this week, it is our job to resist. We must be willing to showcase that the Cornell community stands firmly against and to condemn the militarism, xenophobia, islamophobia, racism, torture, and war crimes that Cheney has made possible.”
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IMAGE: Albert H. Teich/Shutterstock.com
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