fbpx
Breaking Campus News. Launching Media Careers.
Cornell may soon begin crackdown on students engaged in ‘offensive conduct’

Cornell panel also recommends punishment for creating ‘hostile environment’

A Cornell University subcommittee of faculty and staff has called on President Martha Pollack to tighten regulations on the school’s speech and harassment policies, and in particular the group wants harassment redefined to include behavior “that creates a hostile environment” and wants to allow officials the right to re-educate students engaged in as-of-yet undefined “offensive conduct.”

The recommendations are among several determined by the Presidential Task Force on Campus Climate convened last fall to implement “meaningful institutional change” and address “incidents of bigotry and violence” on campus.

The task force was created after a Latino student yelled “build a wall” near the campus Latino center, for which he has apologized and said was a bad joke. Shortly after that, a white student and black student got in an off-campus altercation and the white student allegedly used a racial slur. And at a housing community group dinner, the N-word was displayed on an overhead projector to a crowd of students, leaving them “shattered” and “stunned.”

These events prompted students at Cornell to issue a list of demands for the university to make the campus more inclusive.

As of now, the Ivy League university’s harassment policies are more in line with criminal laws governing the state of New York, according to the group. But members of the task force argued in their report submitted to Pollack on May 1 that those state laws are not strict enough for a campus community.

Pollack, for her part, said in a statement she will likely implement the recommendations as early as this fall or sometime in the future, according to the Cornell Daily Sun. 

The task force’s subcommittee on the regulation of speech and harassment recommends that harassment be redefined as “conduct that creates a hostile environment on the basis of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, gender identity, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics, familial status, or marital status.”

MORE: Intolerance at Cornell: After my Fox News appearance, bullying and threats began. It got so bad I sought counseling.

MORE: Cornell student assaulted for being Republican

“A hostile environment exists when the conduct is sufficiently severe, persistent, or pervasive that it unreasonably interferes with, limits, or deprives an individual’s participating in or benefitting from the University’s education or employment programs or activities,” the recommended language adds.

However, the panel seeks to create a caveat for harassment that might not be hostile, but bothersome to some — a.k.a “offensive conduct” — conduct that would be subject to some sort of corrective recourse.

“Offensive conduct that does not by itself amount to harassment as defined above may be the basis for educational or other non-punitive interventions to prevent such conduct from becoming harassment if it were repeated or intensified,” the suggested policy states.

The recommendation does not define “offensive conduct,” nor spell out how conservative and libertarian students — who are routinely accused of offensive conduct when simply presenting their principles on campuses — might be protected from such a policy.

The Cornell Daily Sun reports that Pollack plans to review the recommendations over the summer “to determine which would be implemented immediately, which would be phased in over the next six to 12 months and which are long-term goals.”

“I fully expect that some of the recommendations will have already been implemented by the time students return in the fall,” Pollack said. “I will provide a full report to the community early in the fall semester on our overall implementation plans.”

MORE: ‘N word’ shown at Cornell house dinner ‘stuns’ crowd, causes students, professor to cry

MORE: Cornell U. student government passes resolution condemning ‘hate speech’

Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter

Please join the conversation about our stories on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, MeWe, Rumble, Gab, Minds and Gettr.

About the Author
Fix Editor
Jennifer Kabbany is editor-in-chief of The College Fix.