Earlier this week, Cornell Professor Kate McCullough was seen taking down a poster detailing Professor Rickford and his earlier comments describing Hamas’ attacks in Israel as “exhilarating” and “energizing,” leading to a heated exchange between the student who put the poster up and the professor.
Kate McCullough is an associate professor at Cornell who teaches Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies, as well as English.
The exchange began when the student, who had earlier put up the poster on a public bulletin board in Goldwin Smith Hall, saw Professor McCullough taking down the poster. From this began a heated exchange between the two. Professor Randy Wayne witnessed the affair, and gave the following statement in regard to what he saw:
I approached the bulletin board outside the Temple of Zeus to put up my own poster advertising that we are bringing in John Tomasi, President of the Heterodox Academy, to speak on When the Cornell President Speaks, What Does She Say?
I saw a faculty member and a student in a heated exchange.
The student asked the faculty member why she had taken down his poster and asked her to give it back to him. The faculty member said that the poster that quoted Professor Rickford was misleading because it did not have enough context. The student pointed to the other posters related to Palestinians that were equivalent, in terms of context, to the posters that the student put up. I asked the faculty member her name, and we introduced ourselves [… she] gave the poster back to the student and left.
Another teacher who was standing there said the poster should come down because there was not enough context for Professor Rickford’s quote. I asked what the context was, and she said that Professor Rickford was exhilarated and excited because the power dynamic between the Israelis and Palestinians had changed and it was irrelevant whether babies were beheaded—right and wrong were irrelevant. The only thing that was important was power and emotion. I asked her if she could trust the students walking by enough to interpret the posters in context themselves. She said no. I told her that I trusted my students to come to their own decisions.
Professor Wayne is an associate professor at the School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Biology.
Speaking about the confrontation, Professor Wayne stated that,
This is the difference between an education and an indoctrination. I hope these two teachers who were intolerant of the posters do not extend that intolerance to the views of students in their classrooms. I know from my advisees that such intolerance does exist on campus.
Education means looking at things from many sides—so I do not believe that anyone’s posters should be torn down because someone does not like the position taken or thinks the poster lacks context. It is a starting point for conversation.
This confrontation comes amid other incidents around campus. Yesterday, a truck bearing an ad which called for Rickford’s firing was chased off campus by protestors. Cornell has not commented about any of these recent conflagrations.
