Imago DEI at Cornell University

The Cornell Theme Year for Freedom of Expression has nothing to do with either Freedom or Expression. Cornell’s Theme Year for Freedom of Expression is nothing but a ploy to commit logocide on those two beautiful words.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), or should I say DIE, is killing the meaning of these words at Cornell. I hate to say it, but I told you so.

Neither the spirit nor the words of the First Amendment are of any interest to the President’s Steering Committee for Freedom of Expression because none of the founders were gay men of color. Although the First Amendment is composed of the letters LGBTIA, it lacks a Q. At Cornell the prevailing attitude of the administration of the first American Ivy League university is that the Bill of Rights should be thrown out along with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Fourteenth Amendment to form a more woke union. To make things worse, the administration’s prioritization of DEI is also anathema to the Spirit of Liberty, which according to Learned Hand, “is the spirit that is not too sure it is right.”

The theme year for Free Expression is nothing but a postmodernist laundering of free speech, based on the ideology that freedom, which is considered to be white freedom, is problematic because it gives the oppressors power over the oppressed. Speech by the oppressors is also problematic, not only because it gives power to the oppressors, but also because the words of the oppressors wound the oppressed. 

For this reason, according to the official speakers of the Theme Year for Freedom Expression, free speech must be policed, there should be no free speech until the oppressed are not afraid to speak, and freedom of the press must be regulated by the government.

The Cornell Theme Year for Freedom of Expression prioritizes the freedom of the “underrepresented” people du jour to not be offended over the freedom of speech necessary for anyone with the courage to search for truth. The Theme Year for Free Expression actually celebrates the Freedom from Speech uttered by the protean list of oppressors as defined by the deeply embedded and growing DEI bureaucracy.

The blatant irony is telling in that the MLK Jr. Commemorative Lecture this year will be given by  Cornell ’81 alumna Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-author of Words that Wound: Critical Race Theory, Assaultive Speech, And The First Amendment. I have a dream that next year’s MLK Jr. Commemorative Lecture will be given by Coleman Hughes, author of The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind Society. I have a dream.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) got is right when they produced the video Help build a culture of free expression at Cornell! Currently, Cornell is nothing but a pre-totalitarian institute that ensures compliance and conformity through fear—fear to speak one’s mind—fear to utter one’s thoughts. While the rates of anxiety and depression at Cornell are through the roof, the instances of verbal constipation, an inability to speak one’s mind on campus publicly and without fear of retribution, is pandemic.

Free speech is fundamental for education in an open society because in the search for truth, all ideas must be uttered and vetted by people with a wide diversity of viewpoints.

It is only when one hubristically believes that he/she/they is/are the authority on truth, that there is no need to let the opposition speak. In my experience, this is especially true when one is intellectually lazy and cannot defend one’s own position with reason.

In order to provide a corrective to the loathing of Western civilization and the culture of fear and groupthink that accompanies it, the Heterodox Academy Campus Community at Cornell University, along with a number of student groups, are hosting a series of speakers, or should I say outlaws, this semester to promote and demonstrate fearless free, rational, and civil speech. 

Our first speaker of 2024 was the award-winning investigative journalist Matt Taibbi of Racket News whose honesty and literary flair makes him heir to Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe. Matt held a Town Hall entitled: Where do you Stand on Censorship in Science?

Given that Matt had first-hand knowledge of the evidence that forms the foundation of the Missouri v. Biden case being heard by the Supreme Court this year, I invited G. S. Hans to Matt’s presentation. Professor Hans is the Associate Director of the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic and a member of the Steering Committee for the Academic Theme Year for Freedom of Expression. I received no answer. 

On December 6^th, I wrote to the Dean of the Law School:

Dear Dean Ohlin,

The Heterodox Academy Campus Community at Cornell University is bringing Matt Taibbi to Cornell on February 12 to hold a Town Meeting on how the post 9/11 surveillance practices turned into a practice of censorship when it came to issues related to science and medicine. Based on the evidence uncovered through Matt Taibbi’s investigative journalism, and the connection to the First Amendment, the Supreme Court will be hearing the Missouri v. Biden case in the 2023-2024 term. Given the importance of this case to First Amendment Law, would the Law School like to co-sponsor this event at no cost?

Thanks,

randy

Crickets again.

Like Tom Petty, I won’t back down. 

We are also bringing in historian and classicist Barry Strauss to talk about Allan Bloom’s book, The Closing of the American Mind, Connor Murnane of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and filmmakers Ted and Courtney Balaker to screen their film The Coddling of the American Mind, based on the best-selling book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, as well as Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott to talk about their book The Canceling of the American Mind. I think that these three books, which cover relativism, infantilism, and censorship, respectively, describe what led to the Polluting of the American Mind and the antisemitic threats that occurred on the Cornell Campus.

Speaking of films, we are screening The Abortion Talks and having a talkback with the filmmakers Josh Sabey and Sarah Perkins. The movie is about how avid pro-life and pro-choice advocates learned how to talk to each other and even came to love each other despite their different positions on abortion. 

We are also bringing in Gad Saad to talk about his book, The Parasitic Mind and to give a talk on Jew-hatred, a concept that the Cornell administration cannot seem to grasp.

Then we will host the Steamboat Institute Campus Liberty Tour for a debate on the resolution: Be it resolved, universities are failing to provide a culture of free speech and open inquiry. Ilya Shapiro will argue the affirmative and Mary Anne Franks will argue the negative.

As my wife Amy, the reluctant founder of the support group for wives of upstarts, rebels, and troublemakers with no sense of self-preservation, watches what is going on in universities today, she says that universities have not failed but rather succeeded in their unspoken goal of quashing a culture of free speech and open inquiry.

We will also host the philosopher Kathleen Stock to talk about transgender and break the topic into its individual pieces in order to demonstrate that it is possible for students, professors, and parents to talk about transgender civilly and reasonably without fear of being described as a hateful and neurotic person with a phobia about transgender issues.

And our commitment to free speech does not conclude at the end of this academic year. We are already making plans to bring in Daryl Davis and Todd Zywicki next fall.

We hope that these speakers, as well as a few others who will be coming, will round out the half-education Cornell students are currently receiving by living in a free-speech-free zone where free speech is supposed to exist only for the vocal members of the “victim class” but not for the so-called oppressors. 

It could be debated which kind of indoctrination best describes the selective intolerance of Cornell’s censorious DEI bureaucracy provides to the students, from the president on down. Is it a miseducation, a diseducation, or a maleducation? Whatever you call it, it’s a half-education, and in a stunning display of conformity and groupthink, the Board of Trustees just voted unanimously to go forward on this path. And that’s too bad, because a half-education produces half-wits.

Videos of the above presentations are or will be available on the Alumni Free Speech Alliance YouTube Channel.