On November 19, the Student Assembly held a hearing during which it considered Resolution 11, entitled “Calling For the Disarmament of the Cornell University Police Department”. According to multiple students who were present, as well as credible reporting from the Cornell Daily Sun, there were multiple interruptions and contentious arguments during the meeting. One student, who confidentially spoke with The Cornell Review, recalled a peer attempting to interrogate CUPD Chief Honan, saying, “You’re scared of a 19 year old? Why do you want to intimidate them, you f—ing coward?” Students on both sides of the issue were present at the Zoom meeting, changing their names to “Back the Blue” and “All Cops Are Bastards”.
Ultimately, Resolution 11 failed to pass, in a vote of 14-15-1. According to a video obtained by a student outside of Cornell University, the Student Assembly meeting devolved into a chaotic shouting match, with someone telling Zion Sherin, a student who voiced his opposition to the resolution, “Zion, I will beat your a–!” Calls to abolish the Cornell Student Assembly were reignited and drew attention from students outside of Cornell University.
In a now deleted Instagram story, several co-sponsors of the resolution and the Cornell Abolitionist and Revolutionary Society (CARS) listed the names, email addresses, and social media handles of the S.A. members who voted against the resolution in order to hold representatives “accountable”. Additionally, a co-sponsor of the resolution released a tweet “exposing” the names of all of the opponents of the resolution. This same co-sponsor called for these members’ recall during a demonstration organized by CARS the next day. The subsequent backlash was enough to convince one S.A. member who voted against the resolution to state that he would reconsider his vote should the resolution be raised again.
Students for SA Reform, a non-partisan reformist group on Cornell’s campus, unequivocally condemned the harassment which occurred against SA members, on either side of the issue. The group said, “Whether you support Resolution 11 or not, the culture of fear and intimidation that has emerged in the aftermath is intolerable.” Multiple students re-posted the Instagram slide deck, but were subsequently tagged in Instagram posts linked to “spam accounts”. One such account (now-deleted) with the handle @chief_hog, released a derogatory post called “Chief hog on why CUPD needs guns”, tagging Zion Sherin and Students for SA Reform. As shown by the screenshots below, this account was followed by at least two SA members.
As of now, there has been no known investigation by CUPD, the Ithaca Police Department, or the university into these incidents and harassment. In a meeting this past Thursday, the Student Assembly failed to re-vote on police disarmament, although this may occur in a subsequent meeting, according to the Student Assembly’s president.
