by Mark Herbcuse

I applaud the person or persons who blocked the listing of a noncompliant professor’s Guest Column in The College Fix in the School of Integrative Plant Science: News and Events for September 12 – 23.

For the heterodox philosophy of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement has no place at an antiracist university committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is especially true at Cornell,

1. which remains a site of entrenched racial disparities, mirroring, in many ways, the larger failings of the nation;
2. which is complicit, in countless ways, in the reproduction of white supremacy;
3. and where every “colorblind” event, mechanism, and process at the university–from new faculty orientations to selection of endowed positions–perpetuates racial disparities and reinforces an unjust status quo.

Intellectual pluralism based on antiquated viewpoints from the horse and buggy days must be canceled.

We must draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and say cancelation now, cancelation tomorrow, cancelation forever!

Thanks to the courage of our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion leaders, we are transforming away from the odious times when President John F. Kennedy promoted hate speech:

In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution reading in part, “freedom of information is a fundamental human right, and the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” This is our touchstone as well. This is the code of the Voice of America. We welcome the view of others. We seek a free flow of information across national boundaries and oceans, across iron curtains and stone walls. We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

I thank those who withheld the listing of the noncompliant professor’s Guest Column for streamlining the process of getting to the accepted orthodox answers so that people will no longer have to be exposed to his or any heterodox views. The person or persons who canceled the listing of the noncompliant professor are true heroes. Twenty-first century efficiency demands that we be vigilant in protecting adult members of the global Cornell University community from microaggressions such as unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.