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Cornell Tag

The events of the past year on campuses have been beyond disturbing. We are witnessing nothing less than a cultural purge of dissenting views on a wide range of topics in the name of social justice. No disagreement is tolerated, not even the slightest deviation. That purge has been going on for many years, but seems to have intensified and is turning on speakers, professors and fellow students. Yale is a particularly vivid example. A faculty couple were harassed and confronted in threatening tones when one of them (the wife) dared raise the question of whether students were overreacting to Halloween costumes, Yale SJW Student to Professor: “I want your job to be taken from you.”

David B. Collum is a world-renowned Chemistry Professor at Cornell University, where I teach at the law school. He has been at Cornell since 1980, and is Department Chair through the end of this academic year. I don't know Dave well, but we have met before. He is something of a Renaissance man, able to converse not only in his specialty, but also in the fields of economics and politics. He's an iconoclast, and self-identifies in his Twitter bio as "Libertarian. Fan of Austrian business cycle."

The way in which sexual misconduct on college campuses is investigated often puts the accused, usually men, in horrible situations. We have written many times about these "kangaroo courts." Sometimes tragedy follows. We recently covered a tragic case in Texas:
Student in Texas Commits Suicide After Trial by Kangaroo Court This is such a sad story. To make matters worse, it’s all just based on accusations. Nothing more. Ashe Schow reports at Watchdog:

It's not popular to be politically conservative at Cornell University, where I teach at the law school. A recent study by The Cornell Sun student newspaper documented that 97% of faculty donations at Cornell Univ. went to Democrats, while an analysis by The College Fix showed that eleven departments at Cornell have ZERO Republican professors. While Cornell is nowhere near as political or radical as many other Ivy League schools, such as Columbia, at the student level there is an overwhelmingly liberal and far-left bent among those students who are politically active.

Former presidential candidate Rick Santorum spoke at Cornell on Wednesday night and was repeatedly interrupted and heckled by a group of students. The event was sponsored by the Cornell Republicans who announced it on Facebook:
The Cornell University College Republicans is proud to announce that Rick Santorum, former Senator, former presidential candidate, author, and attorney will be speaking in Alice Statler Auditorium on the Cornell University Campus on Wednesday, November 30, 2016 at 6:30 PM. Doors will open at 6:15 PM, and there will be a question and answer session following Mr. Santorum’s keynote speech. The event is free and open to the public.

Election Day and the day after were mostly travel days for me, so I was not in Ithaca when news broke that Donald Trump was elected President of these United States of America. What is living in Ithaca like? Here's how I described the directions to my house just after Obama was elected in 2008:
To live in Ithaca is to live in a city alive with anti-Bush, anti-war protest.  I often joke that the directions to my house in Ithaca  read as follows:  Take a right at the fifth Obama sign, a left at the third "Impeach Bush" placard, bear right at the "Support Our Troops, End the War" poster, and we are the house just after the "There's a Village in Texas Missing its Idiot" banner.
I was in Ithaca in 2008 when Obama defeated John McCain. Cornell students ran through the Collegetown section next to campus shouting, dancing and setting off fireworks. Although it's been a while, I don't recall anyone expressing concern about the emotional well-being of McCain supporters. Ditto 2012, when Obama beat Romney.

As we reported recently, the College Republicans at Cornell University were stripped of their credentials by the New York Federation of College Republicans for endorsing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson. The group is now fighting to be reinstated. The Cornell Daily Sun reports:
Cornell Republicans Fight Expulsion, Enlist Attorney in Appeal to National Committee The Cornell College Republicans filed an administrative appeal with the College Republican National Committee today demanding to be immediately reinstated to the New York Federation of College Republicans.

For several years we have been covering the near elimination of due process rights for men accused of sexual misconduct on campuses. Universities, compelled by a directive from the Obama Department of Education under threat of loss of federal funding, have combined with toxic radical feminist "rape culture" warriors to create tribunals in which men are presumed guilty in what amount to Kangaroo courts for men on campus. These campus tribunals have turned our traditional notions of justice around. While we used to hold to a standard that better 10 gulity men go free than 1 innocent man be convicted, now it's Better 10 Innocent Men Suffer, Than 1 Guilty Man Escape.