New and returning students alike: welcome (back) to Ithaca.
Welcome, especially, to the Class of 2027. From the entire staff of the Cornell Review and broader conservative movement on campus, I wish you the very best for the coming four years in ten square miles surrounded by reality. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but it goes by quickly; don’t waste a second.
You enter Cornell at an uncertain time for our university and higher education at large. This summer, the Supreme Court sent seismic waves through the college system with its decisions in the Harvard and UNC cases on affirmative action.
With the end of that ignominious policy comes profound questions about the structure of, well, our society. For so many years, racial preference has been more or less baked into the professional and educational world, but no longer.
Additionally, we stand in the midst of a revived national debate on freedom of speech, academic freedom, and political correctness. Specifically at Cornell, high-profile speaker disruptions and censorship efforts brought about a (quiet) campus debate on free expression. Cornell’s administration, not deaf to these events, has promised a year of programming on freedom of speech, academic freedom, and the like.
The Cornell Review’s programme has always been truthful reporting, searing criticism, and fair coverage. Without free speech protections, we simply could not do what someone must do: shout “stop!” to the excesses of administrative overreach.
Freedom of expression: what’s the point?
The advocates of freedom of speech are, almost always, on the losing side of politics. Both nationally and here at Cornell, you rarely see powerful people making impassioned stands for the opposition’s right to express itself.
That makes sense. If you believe that you are right, you should want to suppress the other side, since they’re wrong. Yet the free speech advocate has enough humility to recognize that maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance he himself is incorrect. Freedom of speech guarantees that criticism, even if ill-founded, will reach the ears of the powerful.
Yet even the opposition, whose continued existence relies on freedom of speech, recognizes that there must be limits. Society cannot function without some degree of censorship. If running into the center of the Arts Quad shouting obscenities is allowed, we don’t really have a society at all.
Reasonable people can disagree on the exact line between acceptable and unacceptable discourse. What they cannot disagree on is that such lines exist at all. As G.K. Chesteron wrote, “There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped.”
Should hecklers be allowed to stifle speakers espousing views shared by millions of Americans? Some in your University Assembly say “yes.” Should historical facts be wiped off syllabi because they might cause discomfort among students? Your Student Assembly (of last year) unanimously said “yes.”
Freedom of expression is not a magic phrase that makes any and all speech permissible, nor is it a subjective beauty-is-in-the-eye rule for those in power. Through reason and discussion, we can find where the line should be drawn – but only if we’re willing to have an honest conversation.
A campus newspaper in the ending era of journalism
Social media reigns supreme. By the time either we at the Review or our friends at the Sun write, edit, and fact check a report on campus news, the facts have already traveled around the proverbial world on SideChat, Reddit, and whatever platforms subsequent Cornellians fancy.
Those same platforms offer readers more opinions than we could ever publish, more voices than we can find, and a handy up-and-down voting system to sentence unpopular perspectives to the oubliettes of campus discourse.
Why do we keep writing? Because what these platforms do not offer is enough confidence to make a stand. Those quick facts on Reddit face no scrutiny other than the baying mob. The opinions on SideChat are made from nameless, faceless, unaccountable screen names. “Post first, ask questions later” is the model of social media.
We serve a different purpose. Even when we get things wrong, there is virtue in saying them in print. We stand behind the things we publish, such that our names will be forever remembered on the internet and the archives of Cornell’s CS classes.
When one responds to an idea, article, or work of art in print, he is forced to engage with the content critically. The act of writing, for that reason alone, is a noble endeavor. Even if two reasonable people arrive at different conclusions, they have both learned by engaging with the other.
At any rate, writing a letter to the editor is better than lobbing baseless accusations of fascism, racism, &c.
Outlining our vision for the coming year
I have so many people to thank for the very existence of the Cornell Review. First and foremost is our amazing staff, especially outgoing Editors-in-Chief Samuel Kim and Cullen O’Hara. From being featured in the New York Times to being accosted by sitting members of student government, my departing friends elevated the Review to a serious place on campus.
I also must thank our current Editorial Board for keeping the ship afloat over the summer, and I eagerly await their work this year.
Most of all: thank you, dear reader, for picking up our print issues, clicking our links, and sticking around. It’s not easy to be a conservative voice on campus, either in the classroom or in print. We are here for you. We can only do this because of you.
Thank you for entertaining an open mind and a different point of view. It is no exaggeration to say that the future of our nation rests on reasonable people disagreeing—sometimes vehemently—but coming back for another conversation.
I wish you all the best for the coming semester, whether it’s your first or second-to-last.
Sincerely,
Rodge Reschini ‘24
Editor-in-Chief, The Cornell Review
