Before the start of the spring semester, Cornell Outdoor Education decided to offer PE 1641 BIPOC Rock Climbing. Initially, the course description said, “This class is for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.” Under pressure from members of the Cornell community and national media, the University decided to change the course to allow for open enrollment for all students.
Almost a semester after the course launched, The Cornell Daily Sun published a piece titled “Students and Instructors Defend BIPOC P.E. Class After Online Controversy.” The piece included a quote from a university spokesman, which reads as follows:
“While some [activities] may include a focus on students with specific identities, they are not restricted to only those students,” said John Carberry, a University spokesperson. “Cornell offers many programs that support interests and perspectives of different parts of our community. We encourage any student who is interested to take advantage of the unique opportunities across campus to learn from and with the many diverse perspectives and voices across campus.”
Though Cornell University seems to subtly pivot towards a discussion of diversity, several interviewees in the Sun’s piece seemed to defend the creation of a separate class, pointing to inaccessibility and “microaggressions like the names of some outdoor climbing routes.” One interviewee stated that, “…people should be focusing less on why segregation exists and more on why there’s a need to segregate.”
Cornell University’s initial actions reflect a larger pattern we see in American academia. In September 2020, Campus Reform reported that the University of Michigan-Dearborn’s Center for Social Justice and Inclusion hosted two separate social events which were advertised as a “BIPOC Cafe” and a “Non-POC Cafe”. Similar to Cornell, the university apologized for the way the events were described and emphasized that all community members could attend. The University of Kentucky was accused of engaging in similar behavior when its Resident Advisors were separated into those who “identify as white” and those who “identify as Black, Indigenous, Person of Color”. Like Cornell and the University of Michigan, the University of Kentucky walked back its actions and condemned the segregated training.
This new trend toward universities setting up segregated events is indeed troubling. However, it is not surprising, given the academy’s indulgence of identity politics. The Review’s reporting on the Faculty Senate’s Anti-Racism Initiative shows only how far the university is willing to go in the name of social justice. For some campus activists, the creation of an anti-racism center and the institution of mandatory anti-racism training for faculty and students may not suffice. Some may justify segregation as a means of achieving “equity.” In order to satisfy outrageous demands for “equity”, it would be necessary to totally abandon equality, a fundamental value which underpinned almost every legitimate movement for social justice in the past.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely the personal views of the author, not those of any organization the author is affiliated with.
