Strict New Rules Imposed on Campus Organizations

As students return to campus, they and their organization’s faculty advisors are confronted with new rules enforced by a revised online registration system known as Campus Groups.

Historically, a Trustee recognition policy required Greek Life organizations to be “recognized” in a manner that granted them a large degree of self-governance and reflected that the chapters were part of a joint student-alumni-national venture that in many cases held millions of dollars of assets. The Greek Life Chapters were advised by an Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life that was funded through alumni endowments and annual gifts. In contrast, other student organizations “registered” annually with the Campus Activities Office on a voluntary basis. The three benefits of registration were the ability to receive student activity fees, participation in ClubFest, and the right to reserve meeting rooms, tabling slots, or outdoor spaces. Many important entities were neither “recognized” nor “registered”, including Telluride, Student Agencies, The Cornell Daily Sun, the Cornell Media Group (WVBR), and student entrepreneurial ventures. 

This led to a robust community where groups were free to invite controversial speakers to campus, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, Ann Coulter ‘84, Michael Knowles, and Angela Davis, among others. Students pursued public policy issues, demonstrated (and even counter-demonstrated), with like-minded colleagues, including other students, faculty, staff, alumni, and Ithaca residents.

The uptick in campus activism led former President Martha Pollack to appoint a Committee on Expressive Activity whose final report was issued on December 18, 2024. That report demanded that groups be regulated on a content-neutral basis – that is, everyone is treated the same, whether or not the group’s views agree with Cornell’s favored positions. The Expressive Activity Policy allowed for some spontaneous demonstrations, but required many demonstrations or protests to register in advance using Cornell’s 25Live room reservation system. This summer’s policy changes seek to crack down on who is allowed to register events, speeches, and protests and how the Cornell community regulates itself.

When students left for summer break, debates focused on changes to the campus judicial system, and many of those issues were resolved over the summer, with a new Student Code and Procedures taking effect August 1. At the same time, Day Hall, working through the Campus Activities Office, was rewriting the group-related rules behind closed doors. Their product, called the “universal recognition policy,” was revealed mid-August, with applications (from certain student leaders and their advisors) to register due on Monday, August 24. The quick transition to the new, poorly drafted rules and forms was chaotic.

How the New Rules Change

First, Cornell is tightening up on policy compliance. Student group leaders and their advisors must click through a long online survey to acknowledge a large number of tangentially relevant policies. 

Second, “recognized” groups must consist of 100% Cornell students rather than at least 50% Cornell students. Cornell’s website explains this change:

“Are there any major policy changes? Student organizations are open to Cornell students only; Ithaca and local community members are no longer able to join. Cornell-approved affiliates, some SFSOs and Club Sports coaches will continue to be eligible to participate with student organizations in their approved capacities. Why are non-Cornellians no longer allowed to be members of USOs and GSOs? Student organizations are intended to foster community, engagement, and belonging among Cornell students. For Undergraduate Student Organizations (USOs) and General Student Organizations (GSOs), membership is limited to currently enrolled Cornell students because these organizations are supported by the student activity fee, which is paid only by Cornell students.”

This is illogical, because many student organizations do not receive student activity fees, and the student activity fee supports non-student events such as Athletics, New Student Orientation, and, in the past, Cornell Cinema. Perhaps the real reason is that certain groups, including anti-Trump groups and Pro-Palestine groups, work hand-in-hand with political activists from Ithaca and local community members. Indeed, an older activist was the person who filmed last April’s confrontation with President Kotlikoff at his parking space. The new policy does not give student organizations the option of foregoing student activity fees in exchange for including non-Cornell students.

Third, instead of leaving groups linked to academic or other units alone to be self-regulated, the “universal” policy is extended to all University Student Organizations (USOs). The Campus Activities Office will bureaucratize the USOs in addition to whatever individual departments do to maintain USO authorization. This means that USO faculty advisors, as well as student leaders, must click through long surveys on Campus Groups in an annual registration process. This will have a big impact on the Law School, College of Business, and Engineering College, where separate vibrant collections of USOs have flourished under the old structure.

Fourth, instead of the Campus Activities Office presuming that all new groups qualify for registration, it appears that each returning or new group will be carefully reviewed, and Cornell will reserve the right to revoke “recognition” at the staff’s sole discretion, without due process. This leaves groups vulnerable if they advocate disfavored positions. There is no guarantee that the individual staff members reviewing the 1,200 groups will respect the diversity of viewpoints or conduct a content-neutral review.

There is a limited time window for new GSO groups to register and seek recognition – October 9 at 4:00 p.m. (EST) through October 16 at 4:00 p.m. (EST). This means that new groups will not be able to participate in fall ClubFest. Instead of encouraging new groups, the website states:

“Please note that space is limited for new student organizations; therefore, not all organizations may be approved. The number of new organizations accepted will depend on how many existing organizations choose not to re-register for this academic year. We currently have 1,186 possible returning organizations and will not know how many spots are available for new organizations until re-registration closes on October 9 at 4:00 p.m.”

There is no requirement that this throttling of new groups will be performed in a content-neutral way.

Cornellians United for Free Speech issued a report on this controversy on August 29 and claims that the new universal policy “seriously affect[s] the First Amendment freedom of association rights and free expression rights of members of the Cornell community.”

Prof. Randy O. Wayne, Plant Sciences, said, “Student organizations are really enriched by including alumni and community members. The marketplace of ideas would suffer if alumni and community members are excluded.”

Matthew Knudsen ‘28, President of Students for a Democratic Cornell, said:

“This is a continuation of the Cornell administration’s repression of student expression and assembly. The removal of the independent code prevents the campus from being run according to the needs of Cornellians; administrators don’t know what students want nor do they care.”

Faculty advisors must click through a promise to “agree to report behaviors that violate university policies.” Prof. David A. Bateman, President of the Cornell AAUP Chapter, said:

“The expectation that faculty will report policy violations might be less objectionable had Cornell not itself violated its policies in order to punish disfavored or politically targeted students. The advising relationship is ultimately predicated on trust. Students must trust their advisors, and vice versa; and both must trust that the consequences for mistakes or principled disobedience will be appropriately tailored. The trust Cornell has shattered over the last few years will be tough to rebuild. This change in policy is another step in the wrong direction, metastasizing the mistrust generated by Cornell’s actions into student/advisor relationships.”

Planning a Controversial Event

The timeframes for making requests under 25Live have changed, and advisors are required to acknowledge the longer timeframes when they click through their registration forms. Potentially controversial events must be scheduled four weeks in advance so that adequate security and logistics can be in place.

The 2024 Expressive Activities Committee’s final report advocated fewer restrictions on scheduling events and making the scheduling process quicker and less restrictive:

“Our committee recommends that the university examine approaches to improve its outdoor and indoor scheduling process. Ideally, scheduling of expressive activities would be managed through the same process as scheduling other campus activities, but currently the requirement of two to four weeks to pre-schedule is too delayed a process to support certain campus activities, including expressive activities. The committee strongly supports efforts to develop a rapid scheduling option.”

The new policies seem to move in the opposite direction from the final report.

These changes should also be viewed in the context of the amount of student activity fees available to the Student Assembly (SA). The fee level is reset every two years based upon inflation. In fall 2025, the SA completed its fee review and set the fee at $476 per undergraduate student. President Kotlikoff then vetoed that bill and limited the 2006-27 and 2027-28 fees to remain at $424. As a result, the student activity fee will not grow to reflect inflation. Cornell still charges event sponsors for the cost of renting large meeting spaces. However, Vice President Lombardi has agreed to fund the security costs associated with controversial events out of his budget rather than the sponsoring organizations’ budgets.

The impact of these proposed changes will be easy to measure. First, both Cornell and FIRE conduct annual surveys of campus climate. Will students report a chilling effect on free speech on campus? Second, one can look at the number of controversial outside speakers, debates, or demonstrations. There will be objective data to check whether the Student and Campus Life staff maintains content neutrality when implementing these changes. Finally, the shared governance bodies can hold hearings and serve as a watchdog on the entire process.

These changes are especially relevant in the context of Hasan Piker’s sold-out event in Sage Chapel.