Today, Housing and Residential Life sent a ridiculous message to the Cornell community, threatening to “implement community billing” for a series of arson crimes that have plagued campus.
“If destructive behavior continues and those at fault do not come forward, we will implement community billing for damage done,” a university email from VP Ryan Lomardi and Assistant VP Pat Wynn said.
“We do hope that it will not come to this,” they added for good measure.
If “those at fault do not come forward”? What kind of message is that?
The email should have read:
“Destruction of property and arson will not be tolerated under any circumstances, for any reason. Those who are responsible for endangering members of our community will be brought swiftly to justice, and law and order will be reestablished. Arson is an attack on our safety, our prosperity, and our way of life. The criminals responsible will be found and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Instead, the email actually pleads with the arsonists while threatening members of the Cornell community, all of whom are the victims of this crime. It is our tuition money that finances these halls, study rooms, and dorms that are being lit on fire by criminals.
In the portion of the email addressed to the arsonists, the university administrators note that “it is certainly a stressful time for everyone,” but plead that this “is no excuse for destruction and vandalism, including arson last semester, that we continue to experience in our residential communities.”
“Please treat the residence halls as you would your own homes, and please treat others with kindness,” the university administrators beg.
Groveling before suspected criminals is unbecoming of the leaders of Cornell, an institution with a rich history and one of the top-ranked universities in the world.
Further, and perhaps even more importantly, why should the onus for such crimes be placed on the entire student population? Such a suggestion is completely unjust, unfair, and wrong.
It is Cornell’s duty to protect its students and maintain a safe campus. They are failing in that obligation, and they are allowing rugs, couches, and doors purchased with our money to be burnt to ashes. Now they threaten more fees for everyone because they are incapable or unwilling to catch a select few low-life thugs?
All this is happening against the backdrop of a longstanding and widespread campaign against law enforcement at Cornell.
The “Cornell Abolitionist Revolutionary Society” frequently degrades law enforcement, with a recent post in January saying “All the cool kids hate cops” and “1312”, an acronym for “all cops are bastards”.
Thankfully, the defund, disarm, and disband the police efforts at Cornell have failed, despite a horrible disarmament bill passing the Student Assembly after a corrupt purge of the resolution’s opponents.
However, an environment in which the police feel supported on campus is elusive. Even in many courses, there is an explicit anti-police message. In Politics of Public Policy last year, the first assignment the teaching assistant gave us was to discuss ways to advance the policy of abolishing the police. That same semester, in Political Institutions Under Autocrats, a separate teaching assistant compared police in America to police in Russia.
America is decaying, and in many ways the obsession with race, gender, and the destruction of existing structures at Cornell symbolizes this. Just as the Biden administration is incompetent on a national stage, the Pollack administration is failing and flailing from one crisis to another: despite authoritarian vaccine and mask mandates, the Ithaca campus experienced a COVID outbreak and closed down; the university disgraced itself by approving a dual degree program with CCP controlled Peking University despite overwhelming opposition from the Faculty Senate and Student Assembly, selling its integrity to China; students are being forced to fufill social justice course requirements in order to graduate; and free speech is crippled both with regard to domestic and international issues.
No one would dare question the benefits of unchecked immigration, the merits of structural racism arguments, the extent to which human activity drives climate change, or the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidency. But if you want to light a couch on fire and commit arson on campus, go right ahead! We’ll foot the bill.
Note: OBVIOUSLY we are not encouraging people to commit arson, rather just pointing out the ridiculousness of Cornell’s response and the double standard – real crimes may go unpunished but thought crimes will not.
