Cornell’s Real Crisis Is Irrationalism, Not Rape
Why are female Cornell students saying that they feel unsafe on campus? Because they are surrounded by adults who are just as unhinged as they are.
On October 28, the Cornell Faculty Senate will vote on a resolution of no confidence in the university administration. The instigator of that resolution, the director of Cornell’s Latina/o Studies graduate program, published his argument for censure in the student newspaper on Friday. A week before, more than 200 Cornell professors released a manifesto expressing their “outrage” at Cornell’s alleged rape culture.
Finally, a reason to check your email.
Sign up for our free newsletter today.
If you want to understand the co-dependency between self-engrossed students and self-indulgent faculty, these two documents tell you all that you need to know.
The faculty manifesto, in the form of a group letter addressed to “Dear Cornell Students,” accuses the university of failing to “prioritize [student] safety and well-being.” The signatories claim that the administration “active[ly]” fosters a “culture” of “structural violence” and “sexual assault.”
That accusation was not alarmist enough. Two sentences later, the “culture” of structural violence has transformed into an “epidemic” of structural violence.
The faculty apologize to the students with an unctuousness worthy of a Tartuffe. “We [failed] to create spaces where you feel safe to share your experiences,” they write to their fellow players in this melodrama of victimhood.
Reality check for these stale academic tropes: Cornell has no epidemic of structural violence. If it did, the Sisterhood would presumably long ago have warned its less worldly members to stay away from such a cauldron of physical abuse.
