Cornell Student Assembly Ponders ‘Restructuring’ and Concludes Race-Based Elections are a Good Idea

On Thursday, April 7th, the Student Assembly (SA) hosted a public forum on its present and future. Entitled “Change the SA: A Discussion on Restructuring”, the event gave SA members and non-SA affiliated students alike the opportunity to vent on problems related to the Assembly, and to converse about potential solutions. Positioned in an inviting circle, those in attendance remained civil—that is, until the need for more identity-based representatives was called into question.

Armed with evidence anecdotal and statistical, a modest but vigilant group of attendees raised concerns about the SA’s appeal to the student body, referencing the lackluster participation in both recent elections and community meetings. Alas, these proclamations failed to appease the audience; the real problem with the SA, it was felt by a majority of attendees, is a dearth of minority representative positions.

And rest assured it was something felt. Regardless of the preexisting presence of a minority liaison and women’s issues liaison, the members of the Student Assembly pine for more.

“I don’t need to see statistics to know that people feel under-represented,” howled one SA member.

The Student Assembly’s Vice President for Finance, Matthew Stefanko ’16, followed with an equally damning blow to reason—but only after apologizing for taking up any speaking time at all as a white male. Why, according to this SA member, is the student governing body broken? Simple: minorities do not feel comfortable running for SA positions. He himself clarified that if, as a minority, he walked into the Assembly and “saw a bunch of white males debating the rules” he too would be off-put. It is, of course, unclear precisely what SA he was referring to given the heavy presence of minorities on the Cornell Student Assembly, but proposing such an inquiry was off the table at this all-welcoming community event.

The real problems on this campus are “not happening to white male students” the VP clarified.

Transpiring less than an hour after a white, male student informed the SA of his struggles with depression (and desire to see more resources allocated towards the issue) the gall in such a statement is nothing short of dumbfounding. Ostensibly, SA members would feel justified in assuring the doleful student that his problems are menial compared to the struggles of the average minority on Cornell’s campus. Sure, white males have a higher suicide rate than blacks or Hispanics, and are second only to Native American and Alaskan Native males, but the SA is here to remind them to check their privilege.

With it clear by this point the prevailing feeling—emphasis on feeling—was that more minority representatives are a necessity, one SA member took it upon himself to propose precisely how the seats would be filled. A series of votes would be in order, of course, but how, pondered the representative, could white students have any valid say in who is to represent minorities?

“People in the minority group, not people in the majority group, should choose their representative,” clarified one person to a thunderous round of snaps.

Correct: a significant proportion of attendees at Thursday’s meeting were all in for elections restricted by race and gender. While the select few of us still residing on Planet Earth were busy recovering our composure, another Student Assembly member went out on a limb and brought up a well-founded fact: restricting elections based on race is illegal in the United States. Nevertheless, as the meeting drew to a close, the crowd was still into the whole race-based voting thing.

The message of Thursday’s meeting was clear: firstly, Cornell’s Student Assembly has no concern for, or basis in, statistics or facts—ideology reigns supreme at the end of the day. Secondly, and in a similar vein, the SA pays no heed to the laws of the United States or students’ rights. Thirdly, the Student Assembly is uninterested in the needs and desires of anyone is who is not in their minds an underrepresented minority; these people the SA has deemed impervious to problems and, if anything, should see their rights (like the ability to speak during an open forum) curbed.

One attendee mentioned that many of Cornell’s peer institutions do not have minority representative seats within their student governments. Perhaps, too, those institutions’ student governments do not have the same popularity problem ours does. The real path to a better Student Assembly is not chocking it full of like-minded individuals on a similar progressive mission, but in shrinking, focusing on the issues that legitimately face the Cornell community, and seeking out diversity in thought. For, as it stands, the SA has a policy of judging someone’s ideas not on their validity but on the color of their skin.

If there is any hope for the SA to once again be taken seriously, it will have to transition from an uninviting, ideologically prejudiced oligarchy to a faction legitimately in the service of bettering the Cornell experience. That, moreover, will require the use of statistics and evidence as the group decides what manner of allocating their budget is in Cornellians’ best interests.

Still, for those on the Assembly, it is probably for the better that the bulk of the Cornell community takes no interest in their doings; otherwise, the elections may indeed be contested, and individuals truly dedicated to serving the needs of all Cornell students might just usurp the bloviating, baseless racists currently in charge.