As Cornell restarts for the Spring 2024 term, pro-Palestine advocates are running out of options. With a goal of influencing U.S. foreign policy, the advocates seek to magnify their influence by identifying symbolic local actions to make their position appear more popular.
Tompkins County Legislature
Advocates believed that a sense of the body resolution adopted by the Tompkins County Legislature would have more impact than just calls and letters from area citizens to our members of Congress.
First, the advocates approach the left-leaning advisory group, the Tompkins County Human Rights Commission, to draft a pro-Hamas resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. On December 18, the commission recommended a pro-cease fire resolution to the full county Legislature.
On January 2, approximately 30 local citizens attended the meeting of the Legislature and testified in favor of the resolution during the public comment period. Instead of adopting the resolution, the Legislature appointed a group to study it further and rewrite it.
In anticipation of the January 16 Legislature meeting, the Cornell Coalition For Mutual Liberation (CML) publicized the public comment opportunity and attempted to bring a crowd to pressure the Legislature into taking action. The Legislature has not acted on the subject.
This is similar to the Cornell Students For Justice in Palestine’s (SJP) efforts to get the Student Assembly to adopt a pro-Palestinian resolution this fall. Despite bringing a group to the Oct. 12 meeting’s public comment period, SJP’s plan did not reach the point that its draft resolution was even assigned a number. Hence, Resolution XX never reached the floor of the Student Assembly meeting to be considered on its merits.
Yale Student Strike
Since mass protests and building “occupations” have not generated the pressure needed to force change, new student tactics are being tried at other colleges. At Yale University, students attempted a one-day strike. It is not clear how this would be more effective than a protest, other than all students who cut classes for whatever reason could be presumed to participate.
On Tuesday, Jan. 16, about 200 students walked out of class for a one-day strike in response to Instagram posts calling for a strike. Since Yale has 11,934 students, participants represent less than 2% of the student body.
Columbia Tuition Strike
Pro-Palestine advocates have been organizing an effort to refuse to pay spring term tuition in order to pressure Columbia University to adopt pro-Palestine policies. One problem is that if tuition is not received by Jan. 26, Columbia charges a $150 late fee. The activists tried to raise money to cover possible late fees, but only raised $1,500, enough to cover just 10 students.
Students are signing pledge forms promising not to pay spring tuition, but organizers will not start the strike unless they have 1,000 students promising to participate. So far, 347 students have agreed to strike.
Cornell CML and SJP leaders have not announced their next steps in pressing their demands. So far, it does not appear that they have gathered a mass of support to force a change in Cornell or US policy. Given that the Cornell student population is over 20% Jewish, this may prove to be an impossible task.
