The racist and regressive decision by the Supreme Court in overturning affirmative action highlighted the systemically racist inequities that are going on all around us. On my cross country drive back to college, I decided to eat lunch at Chinese buffets every day. On the fifth and last day it donned on me that not a single person working at any of the Chinese buffets looked like me. There was not a single queer or trans person of color working at any of the Chinese buffets. There wasn’t even a single person of color now that Asians are no longer People of Color (unless they have been shot by  a white man or pushed by a policeman).

It was just one more sign that we live in a systemically racist, homophobic, and transphobic country built on the backs of Queer and Trans People of Color where cis heteronormative white males get all the privilege and call hate speech free speech. It is good to be back at the safe space of Cornell where President Pollack, in her defense of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, will protect me and those who shutdown racist speakers like Ann Coulter from harmful speech.

Speech is Violence. Thank you President Pollack for standing up for DEI and against the alumni in the Cornell Free Speech Alliance during this Year of Free Expression.

Pollack also said she finds it “incredibly frustrating” that groups like the CFSA attack diversity, equity and inclusion principles under the guise of defending free speech and that she will defend DEI as strongly as she defends free expression.