
UPDATED
Three activists banned from campus for three years
A professor was among several climate protesters who during commencement temporarily defaced the statue of Andrew Dickson White, one of Cornell University’s founders, as a message to stop the school’s “fossil fuel complicity.”
Early Saturday morning, the group Cornell on Fire, a “coalition of Cornellians and community members calling for a just and comprehensive university-wide response to the climate emergency,” put a blindfold over White’s face along with a poster protesting Cornell’s association with the fossil fuel industry, The Cornell Daily Sun reports.
According to a press release from the group, Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island co-organized the protest, along with “collaborators” Fossil Free Cornell and TIAA-Divest.
Upon arrival at the statue protest, university police cited the activists for trespassing and “failure to present a permit to display posters on the statue.”
Three of the climate demonstrators ended up being declared “persona non grata,” meaning they’re banned from “Cornell properties” for the next three years.
Cornell on Fire chose graduation day for the protest “because they wanted to emphasize the climate change crisis that is ‘pivotal’ for the future of the class of 2025.”
Among the group’s participants was bethany ojalehto mays (non-capitalization in the original), whose Cornell faculty page is still active despite her resignation “to pursue her work through activism,” according to the Ithaca Journal.
Mays (pictured), who taught in the psychology department and researched “how people conceptualize agency and ecologies, with a focus on cultural variation in social cognition and human-environment relationships,” told campus police the group’s actions were but a display of an “educational art installation,” and thus permissible.
The Sun notes Cornell’s Expressive Activity Policy does allow for “art installations,” and that scheduling such protests “is encouraged, but not required.”
However, it also states such protests are “limited to members of the Cornell campus community.” As a former professor, it is unclear if mays qualifies.
The Sun does not indicate if mays was among those declared persona non grata. @thestustustudio posted a video on X of mays and a fellow activist describing their activities.
In a statement, Cornell on Fire noted its previous, similar, protest at the statue occurred “without repression, as one would expect under Cornell’s own stated values and policies.” This time, however, “was an alarming indicator that Cornell’s police crackdown on expressive activity is accelerating.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Professor mays contacted The Fix Tuesday afternoon to note she and her fellow activists were unhappy with our use of the term “deface(ment),” claiming it was inaccurate. Although our use of the word clearly is in line with the Oxford definition (“the action or process of spoiling the surface or appearance of something”), we decided to use “blindfold” in our headline, and added “temporarily” before “defaced” in the article.
In a subsequent email, Prof. mays indicated she was not satisfied with our edits. As such, we are adding here what she communicated to us about the events at the A.D. White statue:
We did not “spoil” the surface or appearance of the AD White statue. [Your reporting] goes well beyond the facts of the case. Even the Cornell Police did not allege that we defaced the statue.
As part of their “Don’t Look Away” campaign, Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island has blindfolded and placed signs on over 45 statues since January 2025 (and many more prior). The campaign is explicitly designed as a protest action that does not break any laws and does not damage, harm, or permanently alter statues in any way. Statues have been temporarily blindfolded across the continent, with no threats, no punishments, and no insinuation in press coverage that such actions constitute “defacement.” The [Cornell] PD response was an outlier, and so is your interpretation. It is incorrect from both a legal and popular interpretation.
In addition, information regarding mays’ resignation was added to the article.
MORE: Cornell climate protesters block traffic for hours, a dozen protesters arrested
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: Climate activists protest at Cornell’s Andrew Dickson White statue; Cornell on Fire. INTERIOR IMAGE: Cornell U.
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