Cornell Professor Calls for Violent Protests
Jose Nino
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Cornell University Government Professor Alexander Livingston recently declared that “there is no free expression without disruptive expression.” He did so in response to a “die in” at Cornell’s Mann Library, when roughly 100 student activists laid on the library floor and yelled “Cornell is complicit in genocide” until police were called in to the venue.
Livingston declared that Cornell’s nascent “Interim Expressive Activity Policy,” which declared that protests must “avoid disrupting classrooms, libraries, auditoriums, laboratories, living units, administrative offices and special event venues,” should worry the campus community.
“In a statement released after the protest on Thursday, the Office for University Relations illustrates the strange doublespeak required of the administration’s new policy of repressing speech in the name of speech,” Livingston sted. “In one single sentence, it affirms students’ right to protest while forbidding all conduct that poses a disruption to campus life.”
However he stressed that “democracy needs disruption,” he says. He alluded to how Martin Luther King Jr. caused disruptions throughout the Civil Rights Movement and how gay rights activists during the AIDS outbreak also kicked off disruptions.
In effect, Livingston is calling for violence here. This writer is sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, who ultimately believes that Israel should no longer be receiving military aid. However, calling for disturbances and other forms of violence will set the cause back and lend credence to pro-Zionist fears of criticism of Israel being linked to violent behavior.
Livingston should rethink his strategy and consider more conducive alternatives for his pro-Palestinian advocacy.
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