Around 150 students took over Cornell’s main administrative building, Day Hall, and University President David Skorton’s office Monday afternoon in order to protest the new student health fee.
Language warning.
The protest and protesters have rallied around the hashtag #FighttheFee, and are tweeting out updates from the Twitter account @FighttheFee. There is also a live feed from inside the building.
Students are currently occupying the building and have confronted Skorton, who reportedly engaged in testy exchanges with several students regarding their grievances against him and the University.
Last Thursday Skorton sent an email to all students announcing a $350 fee to be levied on all students who do not purchase Cornell’s Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP) in order to subsidize the healthcare costs of low-income students. The administration has provided a number of reasons justifying the fee–including citing rising healthcare costs, mismanagement of the student health center, and appeal to the “common good”–but student across campus responded only with immense indignation. The Review was quick to recognize the commonalities between what we call the Student Health Insurance Tax, or S.H.I.T, and the provisions in the Affordable Care Act, but opposition to the fee has united students across campus. Read our initial coverage of the fee here.
Today’s protest began in Willard Straight Hall with a short speech accosting the university not just for the fee, but a slew of other derided shortcomings, including poor treatment of low-level employees and the amount of debt students hold. In attendance were about 300 students, several administrators including Denice Cassaro, the assigned event coordinator, and three uniformed policemen.
After the speech concluded, protest leaders—familiar faces among the protest scene at Cornell—corralled students into marching towards Day Hall, the campus’s main administrative building. The students walked over to Day Hall chanting slogans like “Fight the fee” and “Fuck the fee.”
Once at Day Hall, students filed upstairs and began entering conference rooms and various offices. A group of about 20-30 made it into Skorton’s office. A police officer prevented additional students from entering Skorton’s office, citing fire safety codes; in response, students agreed to entering and exiting one-by-one so that more students could get into the office. Reportedly, students took turns delivering speeches in the office before Skorton showed up at about 2 pm.
In addition to occupying Skorton’s office, students entered one conference room, one administrative room, and the rest sat in the hallway. Armed police officers as well as onlooking administrators were scattered across the floor. They appeared anywhere from slightly annoyed to slightly bemused. A group of seven SA members, including President Sarah Balik ’15, were also huddled at the far-end of the hallway; one SA member, David Vakili ’16, was seated along with some protesters. Joseph Friedman ’17, another SA members, was an active participant and apparent organizer of the protest and occupation. Student Trustee Ross Gitlin ’15 was also standing at the end of the hall along with non-participatory SA members and administrators.
Protest organizers, including Review fans Daniel Marshall ’15 and Michael Mintz ’17, tried to rouse students into participating in group discussions and into giving speeches. The group discussions did not materialize in the time Review correspondents were on scene (approximately 90 minutes), but some students did give brief speeches. One, Jeremy Freeman ’15 expressed “confusion” over the fee implementation, and in reference to university spending on new buildings like Klarman Hall but no on student needs like health services, said “It’s kind of messed up.”
Vakili, one of the participating SA members, told the Review the university is “nickle-and-diming [students] right and left across campus, [affecting their] financial emotional intelligence.”
The occupation is still on-going, but protesters have indicated there will be no further large-scale action today. Protest organizers were seen passing around a hat asking for donations to help purchase pizza for the group. Many students did not contribute.
We are middle-class family from Idaho spending our daughter to Cornell so she can play softball for Coach Blood. We are already at our limit financially. We have paid for healthcare insurance through our employmentand we feel that this tacked on $350 healthcare to support the low income is unfair and and unjust for those of us who have already reached our maximum potential financial.
Ms. Stone,
Your grievance is a common one expressed by many students, and undoubtedly felt by many students’ families. We are currently trying to figure out more about the student health fee, and will have another article posted shortly explaining it in more detail. Please continue to read out site for more updates.
Sincerely,
Casey
Correction sending not spending….
I believe this Tax is reprehensible. I am an alumni of Cornell who was able to attend via my workplace. I will definitely inform my employer and find out if we will be able to help remove this “fee”. I know Cornell has many graduate students (myself one of them) that work and have insurance through our companies. I wonder if the companies we work for will be concerned as this “fee” will have to be paid by them.
Well Punkin’s you all voted for Barry The Benevolent, what’s the problem snookems? You mean it’s OK when it’s somebody else’s money being redisributed for “the greater good”, but not so much when it’s your’s.
Well cupcake, when you graduate from your silver spoon, time out of time Cornell womb, you will might find that life in the real world is really really hard! As in Life sucks and then ya die!
I bet your pony tailed Marxist professors didn’t tell ya that part did they.
“Socialism is a wonderful thing, until you run out of other people’s money”–Margaret Thacher
Now, you kiddes get back to your ever so important protest!