GUEST ROOM | Reason versus repression: censorship debate within the University Senate

The authors of this article are a group of female professors who attended the Faculty Senate meeting on October 14. The Cornell chapter of the American Association of University Professors is publishing the letter on their behalf. Cornell AAUP President David Bateman can be reached at dab465@cornell.edu.

The gender dynamics at the Oct. 14 Faculty Senate meeting were all too familiar to the female faculty in attendance. We developed thoughtful arguments; men called them “stupid,” “insulting,” and “rubbish.” We cited evidence and data; the men said they felt our “anger” and “passion,” but that we lacked a “thoughtful response.”

The meeting to discuss the no-trust resolution opened with a first-ever reading of selections from Cornell’s Expressive Activity Policy. President Kotlikoff, flanked by several bodyguards and two uniformed police officers, then reassured the women lined up for the question-and-answer session with him, telling them: “…there is no effort to silence anyone’s voice.” (Audible laughter ensues).

When several professors pointed out that punishments for nonviolent student protesters often exceeded those for alleged rapists, Kotlikoff became visibly defensive. “We are of course confusing several things,” he noted. “One is expressive activity, and the other is this sexual assault and how we make our campus safe.”

Professor Renata Leitão responded in the Zoom chat: “Double standards are not the same thing as conflation. »

Professor Catherine Appert added: “Leaders are expected to work as hard to prevent campus rape as they do to prevent political speech they disagree with. »

Then Professor Shaoling Ma courageously asked Kotlikoff, “Is rape a less disruptive expressive activity than genocide protest?”

The president responded, “It’s just not intellectually honest to be able to talk about this, and I frankly think it’s insulting to talk about it in the context of Jane Doe.” »

But for many of us, the connection between high rates of campus sexual violence and the repression of speech is inseparable. Our students report being afraid to report rape because they are afraid of violating the university’s expressive activity policy. Over the past three years, Cornell has disciplined 81 students for nonviolent speech. And yet, recent reports reveal that over the past four years, Cornell has expelled only two out of sixteen respondents found responsible for sexual misconduct.

So no, we cannot ignore the fact that students were sanctioned with temporary non-academic suspensions and confined to their dorms unless they attended classes or accessed meals for a non-violent “disruptive” activity, because they were ostensibly posing a threat to the safety of other students or “violating” their right to participate in a career fair. Especially not when others found responsible for sexual misconduct – a far greater threat to student health and safety than making noise at a panel discussion – have been allowed to continue engaging in our community. We cannot ignore the fact that the administration instrumentalized its concern for student “safety” in the case of student protests to silence critics who threatened its material interests, while simultaneously weaponizing its concern for “due process” in cases of sexual misconduct to discourage us from emphasizing the double standard. The irony is too striking.

Disruption has always been the lifeblood of progressive change. Disruptors accept the consequences of their disruptions; This is part of the poignancy of civil disobedience. But when the consequences are so disproportionate to the scale of the disruption – when the penalty for disrupting a panel discussion by coughing, for example, exceeds the penalty for sexual assault – then discipline enters the realm of enforcement. Aggressive enforcement of anti-disruption policies – and their masquerade of neutrality – is always a means of enforcing the status quo. We link these issues because our very expectation of freedom from sexual violence rests on the courage of disruptive protesters of the past. We think of our sisters in India, Pakistan and Chile whose disruptive actions have played a crucial role in pushing lawmakers to pass laws against sexual assault and other forms of gender-based violence.

The suppression of student voices comes from the same place as the suppression of professors’ academic freedom. During his hour-long question-and-answer session, the president repeatedly downplayed the women’s remarks by referring to our “passion.” The categorization of women as overly emotional or “hysterical” in Western science, medicine and culture – as opposed to the rationality of men – goes back millennia. In the context of sexual assault, this association has been used to frame women’s experiences as “unfounded”, to silence them and exercise political, social and economic control over them.

The women immediately understood Kotkikoff’s coded language. Faculty Senator Anne Marie Brady responded: “It’s not passion, it’s wanting an administration in touch with reality. »

And in a moment of dropping the microphone, Professor Justine Modica responded: “We are not “enthusiasts”. We want to prevent our students from being raped, Mr. Kotlikoff.

Other repressive measures at the meeting did not need such a whistle. After the president set the tone, Senator William Katt walked to the microphone and proclaimed that our ideas were “disgusting” and “stupid.” Neither Faculty Senate President Sam Nelson nor Faculty Dean Chris Schaffer objected to this conduct or its potential chilling effect on our speech. In fact, Schaffer went on to thank the faculty for what he called a “very respectful and very thoughtful debate on a critically important decision.” It wasn’t until six days later that we learned that Schaffer had hidden a letter from Jane Doe that she had explicitly asked him to share with us before we met; something that might have informed our questions to Kotlikoff, as well as our deliberations on this issue.

In short, the meeting did not give us confidence in the administration’s ability to effectively respond to the ongoing sexual assault crisis on campus. Instead, it gave us a taste of the repressive and misogynistic culture that allows unconscionable rates of sexual harassment and violence to persist at Cornell. It showed us how far this administration will go to protect some voices while stifling others. But, like our brave sisters before us, we will not be silenced. We will vote no confidence.

Sincerely,

The “passionate” women of Cornell Faculty

(If you too are passionate about this issue, we encourage you to register to support the no-confidence vote and view the list of supporters here.)

Correction: October 28, 11:30 a.m.: Professor Shaoling Ma has been edited with the correct spelling.

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