Is this legit??

[upprdeck]

Im not sure that you get those same protections though.. Its like you cant use cornell email or services to make political statements.  You can represent yourself as a Cornell person in making those statements either.

[RichH]

Based on some of the graffiti on campus this week, the behavior of some professors and the admin in general, I sadly don't think Cornell students can be dismissed as culprits.  Which makes me ashamed as an alum.

According to a NYT article, the offending professor requested a leave of absence.  I hope it's a long one.  Universities should be a place for informed debate, not mindless diatribes.

As long as Rickford remains on the faculty, Cornell isn't seeing another dime of my money.

Penn is going through a crisis now where Wharton Big Guns are staging a donor revolt, mostly aimed at the president. There seems to be a lot of line crossing between the situation we're discussing at CU and conservative "stop the wokeness" battle cries especially since a Palestinian literary event seen as the source of outrage occurred before this month's attacks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/us/university-of-pennsylvania-donors-israel-hamas.html (paywall)

https://www.businessinsider.com/university-of-pennsylvania-major-donors-pulling-funding-israel-hamas-war-2023-10

[George64]

Academic freedom has its limits.

No.  It doesn't.  You can be disgusted by his remarks; I am.  You may demand he modify what appears to be support for the murder of innocents*, which should be grounds for dismissal as it is not covered by freedom of expression.

But academic freedom is sacred.  A person could not be arrested for saying what Rickford did; therefore he should not face academic sanction for saying it.

Freedom matters most when you hate the sentiment.  That's when it's valuable.  The appropriate response to Rickford is: "You have the right to say that.  You are wrong.  Fuck you."

* _{Support for the IDF bombings would face the same test.}

First, I will admit that I didn't hear Rickford's entire "speech," but like you, I was horrified that anyone would be "exhilarated" by the wanton killing of innocents.  Likewise, I'd be horrified if someone were exhilarated by the deaths of innocent Palestinians by the IDF as retribution for the deplorable acts of Hamas.  
 
Of all people, academics should rely on thoughtful argument and avoid hyperbole that incites passion, rather than reason.  Perhaps I misappropriated the concept of "academic freedom," so in that case, I say to Rickford, "You are wrong.  Fuck you."

[Trotsky]

I agree that academics should be thoughtful and nuanced.  From watching the excerpts of Rickford's speech (I cannot find the whole thing) he seems to me to be deliberately going against the grain by stressing that this was an inversion of the expectation of violence -- the 24/7 violence against the Palestinian people in "the world's largest open air prison" which is maddeningly condoned if not encouraged by the West because it suits our purposes to have a beach head to protect our oil supply.

The West doesn't care about anybody in that conflict, Jew, Muslim, Christian, or Fryer (the Church of Bacon).  Our policies are dictated by power projection -- the rest is sales.  Rickford understands that and as an anti-imperialist (and as a human being) he is pointing out that the shoe being on the other foot for once might actually wake a few brains out of their dogmatic slumber.  "This is awful when innocent people are massacohhhhhhhhh, now I get it!"

So in many ways the horror of Rickford's remarks makes his point.  And that is a legitimate, and subtle, point worthy of an academic.  But Rickford is also a historian, with an appreciation of how power operates, so he had to know full well the effect or his words and the blowback.  Rickford essentially did the rhetorical equivalent of the Hamas attack, and the response is now the rhetorical equivalent of the Gaza bombings.

[underskill]

Or just don't support jihadist terrorist groups as another option. And certainly don't encourage our kids to. It doesn't have to be complicated

[Trotsky]

Or just don't support jihadist terrorist groups as another option. And certainly don't encourage our kids to. It doesn't have to be complicated

And ignore the day to day terrorism of state forces because hey it's not sexy.  Yes, that certainly is another option.

The problem with being consistent ethically is it gets really uncomfortable, for everybody, really fast.  That's why we make a distinction between "terrorism" and murdering children in "tactical responses."  See how nice the latter seems?  That baby didn't die screaming, she was just a euphemism.

[underskill]

Civilians die in war. It sucks but that doesn't create moral equivalency with barbarians.

[TimV]

Forget it Jake, It's Chinatown. Some are just incapable of seeing the difference between premeditated murder, rape and infanticide and unintentional, though predictable collateral damage, in part due to tactics of the aggrieved.

[Trotsky]

in part due to tactics of the aggrieved.

Oh FFS.

There is a difference for the individual running the Belgian baby through with his Pickelhaube vs the pilot pushing the button to release ordinance on the Vietnamese village.  One is intimate and the other is industrial.  I, like you, feel the former is far worse as an individual action.

But the planners who design the attack plans are ethically identical.  They are, in the cool shade of their boardrooms or war rooms, setting in motion actions that result in mangled corpses.  They are the same, all things being equal.

We excuse them to the degree they are acting in self defense, but in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict both sides are equally acting in self defense, so the planners are identical in guilt.

"Grunt, me good, you bad," plays well with the mob, so by all means continue.  I don't think it will play quite as well here.

[Trotsky]

Civilians die in war. It sucks but that doesn't create moral equivalency with barbarians.

Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs is not top shelf morality.

[TimV]

in part due to tactics of the aggrieved.

Oh FFS.

There is a difference for the individual running the Belgian baby through with his Pickelhaube vs the pilot pushing the button to release ordinance on the Vietnamese village.  One is intimate and the other is industrial.  I, like you, feel the former is far worse as an individual action.

But the planners who design the attack plans are ethically identical.  They are, in the cool shade of their boardrooms or war rooms, setting in motion actions that result in mangled corpses.  They are the same, all things being equal.

We excuse them to the degree they are acting in self defense, but in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict both sides are equally acting in self defense, so the planners are identical in guilt.  

Please elaborate on rape, infanticide, and intentional murder of innocents (vs Unintentional collateral) fits into your idea of self defense.

[Trotsky]

Please elaborate on rape, infanticide, and intentional murder of innocents (vs Unintentional collateral) fits into your idea of self defense.

There's a guy in that village who raped my sister.

So I nuked it.

[underskill]

If the village supports it then you should absolutely nuke it.

[upprdeck]

I see they announced an arrest for the Cornell anti-jewish statements thing.

[French Rage]

I see they announced an arrest for the Cornell anti-jewish statements thing.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/us/cornell-antisemetic-threats-person-of-interest/index.html