From a purely academic point of view, most undergraduate distri-

bution requirements at Cornell are unjustified.

Our function as a land-grant uni-versity is the starting point for any discussion of curriculum. As pub-lic servants-in-training—even those of us not in the contract colleges—our mission as students is to become proficient and productive members of society. The colleges must make this happen by teaching those pro-ficiencies either by-the-major or via universal requirements (here-after, “requirements”). So, how do requirements affect the land-grant mission?

It is ironic that two of the three undergraduate contract colleges have the least restrictive require-ments. Human Ecology is essen-tially fully tailored-by-major; ILR includes some humanities to break up the intensive college curriculum. The more preprofessional of the en-dowed colleges, AAP, Engineering, and Hotel Management, have some.

CALS has a moderate amount, but none compare to the behemoth lib-eral curriculum of the Arts school.

How do these disparate ap-proaches affect outcomes like pub-lic service, positive research output, and post-graduation employment? Unfortunately, we cannot make ap-ples-to-oranges comparisons be-tween the colleges due to their vast differences in structure and funding. Further, graduate unemployment (excluding those who go to gradu-ate school) is not informative: 34% in Human Ecology; 4% in ILR; 23% in CALS; 18% in A&S (2011 survey data).

Clearly, we need to ask better questions about the purpose and ef-fectiveness of requirements, justi-fying their enormous impact on the academic landscape at Cornell. That sounds expensive and slow, so we can start by weighing current claims against the burden of proof.

The Arts school claims that its liberal education “will change the way you think, challenge your as-sumptions, and make you take a

deeper look at the world around you. It will…prepare you for a lifetime of intellectual growth and adventure.” Gladly, having endured this adven-turous process, I am indeed adept at challenging assumptions. Liberal re-quirements were romanticized cen-turies ago, long before modern poli-cymaking practices were developed. Consequently, there is a severe lack of evidence that requirements are necessary for students to develop an advanced ‘personal epistemology’ during college. (Reading the Review, however, is essential.)

Admittedly, it is difficult to per-form experiments on students. Until social scientists swoop in and save the day, administrators ought to take a more open-minded perspective on how students prefer to prepare themselves for public service. Con-sider undergraduate research, one of the most enriching student en-deavors. It allows undergrads to be-come highly proficient in a specific field of their choice, as well as prac-ticed in the most modern, rigorous

Like many urban centers through-out the United States, Itha-

ca’s Collegetown neighborhood is plagued with rising rent prices and a deteriorating housing supply. As a result, real estate developers can-not provide quality housing at rea-sonable rents to students. Housing reform needs to be made in order to ensure that students can find com-fortable living space at a reasonable price.

The only way to meet such de-mands is to remove limitations on real estate development.

Government regula-tions are currently restrict-ing private sector develop-ers. They are preventing them from taking advan-tage of the full potential of the land they develop, thus constraining them to offer a limited housing stock. With demand of housing exceeding supply, the market produces higher prices than would provide optimal efficiency.

Such regulations can be seen as a failure of land-use policy across the United States, and one of the major reasons quality affordable hous-ing cannot exist in America’s great-est cities. Ithaca is no exception. In order to make Ithaca more livable for students, we must rethink some of the most restrictive land-use reg-ulations imposed by the local gov-ernment over the Collegetown area.

First, there is an off-street park-ing requirement in Ithaca mandat-ing the construction of one parking space per three persons renting. In a building housing 300 students, for example, there must be 100 parking spaces.

In response, Ithaca developers have three course of action, if they chose to build in Collegetown. They can build parking underground, build parking at ground level with housing above, or build a parking lot which takes up valuable city land. Even before one brick is laid in the construction process, the parking requirement alone constitutes up to

and over a million dollars in capi-tal and opportunity costs. That is money that could be used to improve the quality of housing built. It is money that also drives up the cost of rent for students.

Considering that most students do not have cars on campus and that parking should not be the govern-ment’s problem to begin with, a policy without such regulation would prove more livable.

Likewise, the city government imposes a regulation that limits building land coverage to 40%. In

“We Do Not Apologize.”The Conservative Voice on Campus

BLOGcornellinsider.com SITEthecornellreview.com

An Independent Publication

The Cornell ReviewDecember 4th, 2012vol. xxxi, no. vi

Michael LoffredoStaff Writer

Continued on page 7

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“Missing Girls”Flaws of the American pro-abortion argument

Editorial: College Conservative CoalitionThe Future of Conservative Appeal

Coulter DeniedFordham’s attack on intellectual freedom

City Regulations Are Driving Up Your Rent

INSIDE

11Cornell Insider: Interview with Student Trustee Alex Bores

Continued on page 5

A Land-Grant Fishing ExpeditionMeasuring the Merit of Distribution RequirementsBy Lucas Policastro

Ithaca is High Rent

Undergrad-wide Two First-Year Writing Seminars and two physical education.

Arts & Sciences Foreign language proficiency; five humanities with breadth; four math and science; 4-5 electives.

AAP Out-of-college electives.

Engineering Six humanities, language.

Hotel Administration Foreign language; 18 cr. humanities/science; 24cr. free electives.

CALS (contract college) Four humanities/language with breadth; communication; quantitative literacy; biology; chemistry or physics.

ILR (contract college) Two humanities, one writing, one science.

Human Ecology (contract college) Two natural sciences.

Cornell by the requirements

6Sexual assaultA statistical perspective

2 December 4, 2012

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Opinion

As the saying goes, Cornell is the easiest Ivy to get into, but the

hardest one to get out of. The condi-tions here can be brutal, but they also offer an opportunity to sharpen your intellect and refine how you think about what you know, and more im-portantly, what you don’t know.

It is no secret that the vast ma-jority of people on campus and in the city of Ithaca are solidly left of center, if not radically so. For all of the chatter about diversity, the one type of diversity that most crucially needs to be addressed has fallen by the wayside: diversity of thought. We can have every color, every re-ligion, every socio-economic back-ground, every shade of gender and sexual identity along the continuum, but if these people, boxed into the Left's social demarcations all think exactly the same way about the is-sues, then we have fallen into the dark abyss of groupthink. What is the point of having Universities sell themselves as beacons of intellectu-al inquiry if the end result would be

the same as if we had all just gone to re-education camps?

To address this issue from a conservative standpoint, only two things are necessary. The first is to know the facts. The late Daniel Pat-rick Moynihan summed it up suc-cinctly: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

We all know that the Republican Party and the conservative move-ment at large have taken a huge hit in that arena, given the monstrous-ly false claims that sucked so much oxygen from the news cycle and the broader economic message that I will not repeat them here. Once lib-erals and conservatives work from the same set of facts, then we can move forward to a genuine, and per-haps even productive, debate. This is actually trickier than one might think. For example, the Bush tax cuts resulted in more revenue flowing to the federal treasury in the follow-ing years despite lower marginal tax rates. This will never stop the Dem-ocrats from blaming Bush for any-thing and everything, but it should be noted that the Bush tax cuts re-sulted in greater-than-expected

revenue to the federal treasury, not less, to cor-rect one of the larger miscon-ceptions floating around.

This leads to the second point: do not be afraid. What I mean by that is don't let a fear of being unjustly labeled a racist or sexist or bigot or whatever hinders your expression of a conservative viewpoint, especially when you have facts to back up your position.

But also, don't be afraid to admit when you might be wrong about something, and be open to other (fact-based) opinion. As impossible as it seems, liberals do argue with some irrefutable facts that we must address instead of dismiss. We can-not continue, and this goes for peo-ple on both sides, to dismiss the other viewpoint as being grounded in hate or ignorance or some other bad intent. Some people may come from that angle, but they cannot be allowed to dominate how we discuss issues with each other, especially

when we know people of good faith from all sides.

I have met some incredible peo-ple on campus who are near-Marx-ists, and the hardest thing, but one of the most rewarding things, was to come to understand why they hold the opinions that they do. The expo-sure to their ideas helped me to un-derstand better why I hold the opin-ions that I do. In short, you must know why you believe something, why other people believe another thing, and be able to confidently ar-ticulate the differences with facts and without fear.

Misha Checkovich is a graduating senior in the College of Arts & Scienc-es. She can be reached at mcc254@cornell.edu

A Senior’s Reflections: Misha CheckovichFrom to Council Candidate to Early Graduation, My Parting Thoughts from the HillMisha CheckovichStaff Writer

The Next Generation of PoliticiansLessons on Avoiding the Hubris of Modern Politics

A few weeks ago, I attended a pub-lic lecture by Charles Murray at

the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. The room was filled with DC interns eager to hear Murray talk about his book Coming Apart, which explores the cultural differences that have increased the disconnect between lower and up-per-class white Americans. Though I was skeptical of some of Murray’s more controversial ideas, such as his belief that the U.S. should eliminate internships and the SAT, I took away some valuable lessons that I think most Cornellians would appreciate.

Murray’s bold statements ac-curately describe the vast majority of well-educated America. Murray highlighted that unlike in previous decades, in recent years, high-I.Q. Americans now dominate elite col-leges, marry each other, and often live near each other in overedu-cated cities like DC. Members of this upper-class send their children to schools with children from other upper-class families. They watch shows like Downton Abbey and Mad Men, not Judge Judy or Oprah. They physically and culturally isolate themselves from the rest of society.

Why should the upper-class connect with the rest of so-ciety? Murray argues that

individuals who disconnect them-selves from the lifestyles of other classes will end up making rash gen-eralizations about the rest of Ameri-cans, whom they barely know. Mur-ray criticized the often arrogant good intentions of the upper-class. He pointed out that people of the upper-class often claim that they know what is best for society, and think they know what is best for the vast majority of America. Often these well-educated Americans be-lieve that the rest of society is not

capable of making informed judg-ments about diets, politics, family or jobs. For example, many are quick to label the Tea Party as ignorant white hicks without taking the time to ac-tually talk to Tea Party members and understand their perspectives.

If you are interested in public policy, politics, or law, you definite-ly must understand different per-spectives in order to make the best policy decisions. The next genera-tion of well-educated politicians

and leaders will be far more capable of making wise decisions if they at-tempt to relate to and connect with the community. Underlying elitism is separating the classes faster than income inequality. Murray rests blame on both upper-class liberal and conservative individuals for this underlying elitism. He also suggests some ideas for the next generation of well-educated leaders to reduce this dissonance.

He told the group of interns to spend two years in a foreign coun-

try. He said they should earn $2,000 of their own money, and book a one way plane ticket abroad. He suggest-ed that they pick countries where they would be in the minority. (Sorry Downton Abbey fans, England does not count.) In addition, he said they should not speak the languages of their countries of choice, and should attempt to learn them while there.

Bottom line: get out of your com-fort zone. By learning to cope and adjust to new surroundings, you will

gain confidence in yourself and be-come more in tune with the lives of individuals different from you.

If spending two years in Kuala Lumpur is not your thing, Mur-ray has some reasonable solutions. He proposes that individuals of the upper class and lower classes engage in a community. They should talk to each other and know each other’s needs. In such an ideal society, indi-viduals would be slow to generalize about each other and quick to bring their community together. That is not to say that the upper-class must give up their lifestyles. (You can still watch Downton Abbey.) After all, Murray himself is not afraid to em-brace upper-class culture. He even left the lecture early to attend Don Giovanni with his wife. Instead, the next generation of well-educated in-dividuals should be conscious of this gap between the upper and lower classes, and should take the initia-tive to connect with people unlike themselves. So maybe, when you graduate, you should move into a neighborhood where at least some of your neighbors are not your best friends from Cornell.

Caroline Emberton is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences, spend-ing the semester in the Cornell in Washington program. She can be reached at cme67@cornell.edu.

Caroline EmbertonWashington Correspondent

Often these well-educated Americans believe that the rest of society is not capable of making informed judgments about diets, politics, family, or jobs.

December 4, 2012 3

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In the wake of President Barack Obama’s victory in the No-

vember 6th Presidential election, young Republicans and poten-tial Republicans are left wonder-ing what is next for this political party. How will its leaders learn from the mistakes made over the last four years?

The answer lies in how the next generation of liberty de-fenders will interpret, apply, and spread the philosophy that de-fines the American governmental model. This process begins with the interactions that are within our control.

The conservative movement finds its timeless merit from a philosophical standpoint. This philosophy is based upon the basic principles that were first codified by mankind in the Dec-laration of Independence. They include the right to self-gov-ernance, limited government, checks and balances, republican-ism, and federalism. These prin-cipals are so deeply embedding in the American conscious that they will not soon be forgotten, but they can be blinded by poli-tics that focus on the issues only of the present day.

The Republican Party lost the 2012 Presidential election, in part, because of its inabili-ty to connect its candidate with the principles that remain at the heart of the Party’s platform.

Instead of standing for these basic values, the campaign led by Mitt Romney focused on the is-sues that they believed were im-portant to most Americans. In doing so, Mitt was playing on the President’s battlefield, a field oc-cupied with grassroots move-ments to win the issues that col-lectively make up the modern day Democratic Party. This was a matchup he could not win.

The reason for President Obama’s control of the issues is two-fold. First, modern Repub-licans have shown an inability

to successfully anticipate the is-sues that are actually important to voters. The most glaring ex-ample of this was the fudging of the abortion question by multiple Congressional candidates. Mean-while, other proponents of liber-ty were turned away by the Par-ty’s handling of the immigration issue. As these examples shows, key voting blocs based their vote on issues that the Romney cam-paign either ignored or handled improperly.

Secondly, the Republican Party also cannot win on issues because of the “Democratic Diction Mo-nopoly.” In essence, the Demo-crats are winning the word game. They successfully argue that abortion is a right, by juxtaposing it with the word “choice.” Repub-licans are labeled anti-choice but are rightfully too moral to label the other side as anti-life. Never-theless, an effective campaigner knows the importance of these semantics. The Party will not sur-vive if its stance on the abortion issue is viewed publically as an

abridgement of choice.A logical conclusion, therefore,

is that the Republican Party, and the conservative movement in general, finds its merit by stand-ing for the values at the heart of the American experiment. The movement must rediscover this philosophical foundation.

The focus now shifts toward the possibility for young conser-vatives—whether fiscally or so-cially—to return the political dis-course to one based upon values.

The evolving young conserva-tive movement has the opportuni-ty to bypass partisan stereotypes

and base their ideology on moral principles, not the diction of blinding issues. This process be-gins on our Cornell campus and on campuses across the coun-try, for this is where Generation Y will begin to make its impact. Not to mention that college is the ideal time to explore the various applications of the values that de-fine our individual lives and soci-ety in general. We are too young and have too much potential to be blinded by issues that vote-seek-ers believe are important.

In doing so, this College Con-servative Coalition is carrying the same torch as Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Taft, and others. It has the courage to discuss potential interpretations of the values these men preached. It applies these interpretations to daily life, and it encourages simi-lar discussions amongst peers.

It is now the goal of this pub-lication to lead this discussion of values on campus, and analyze how they influence the issues

that student leaders attempt to tackle in the coming months.

With the educated, moral elec-torate that such a coalition would instill, the principles that estab-lished the rights of man and the limited role of government will survive, regardless of the issues of the present day. As Americans with an understanding of our place in history, what could be more important?

Alfonse Muglia is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He can be reached at arm267@cornell.edu.

Editorial 33

Jim KellerJerome D. Pinn

Anthony Santelli, Jr.Ann Coulter

Founders

The Cornell Review is an independent biweekly journal published by students of Cornell University for the benefit of students, faculty, administrators, and alumni of the Cornell community. The Cornell Review is a thoughtful review of campus and national politics from a broad conservative perspective. The Cornell Review, an independent student organization located at Cornell University, produced and is responsible for the content of this publication. This publication was not reviewed or approved by, nor does it necessarily express or reflect the policies or opinions of, Cornell University or its designated representatives.

The Cornell Review is published by The Ithaca Review, Inc., a non-profit corporation. The opinions stated in The Cornell Review are those of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the staff of The Cornell Review. Editorial opinions are those of the responsible editor. The opinions herein are not necessarily those of the board of directors, officers, or staff of The Ithaca Review, Inc.

The Cornell Review is distributed free, limited to one issue per person, on campus as well as to local businesses in Ithaca. Additional copies beyond the first free issue are available for $1.00 each. The Cornell Review is a member of the Collegiate Network.

The Cornell ReviewFounded 1984 r Incorporated 1986

The Cornell Review meets regularly on Mondays at 5:00 pm in GS 156.

E-mail messages should be sent to cornellreview@cornell.edu

Noah Kantro Alfonse MugliaEditors-in-Chief

Karim LakhaniPresident

Lucia RafanelliManaging Editor

Vice President

Michael AlanExecutive Editor

Laurel ConradCampus News Editor

Kushagra AniketNational News Editor

ContributorsMisha Checkovich

Zachary DelléCaitlin Deming

Caroline EmbertonAndre GardinerAlex Gimenez

Michael LoffredoRoberto MatosMike NavarroKirk SigmonBill Snyder

Emeritus MembersAnthony LongoLucas Policastro

Christopher SlijkOliver Renick

Faculty AdvisorWilliam A. Jacobson

Board of DirectorsChristopher DeCenzoJoseph E. Gehring Jr.Anthony Santelli Jr.

The Cornell Review prides itself on letting its writers speak for themselves, and on open discourse. We publish a spectrum of beliefs, and readers should be aware that pieces represent the views of their authors, and not necessarily those of the entire staff. If you have a well-reasoned conservative opinion piece, we hope you will send it to cornellreview@cornell.edu for consideration.

Katie JohnsonTreasurer

Copyright © 2012 The Ithaca Review Inc. All Rights Reserved.

College Conservative CoalitionAlfonse MugliaEditor-in-Chief

It is now the goal of this publication to lead this discussion of values on campus, and analyze how they influence the issues that student leaders attempt to tackle in the coming months.

The Review welcomes and encourages letters to the editor. Long, gaseous letters that seem to go on forever are best

suited for publication in the Cornell Daily Sun. The Review requests that all letters to the editor be limited to 350 words.

Please send all questions, comments, and concerns to cornellreview@cornell.edu.

The Cornell Reviewest.1984

thecornellreview.com

4 December 4, 2012

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The Center for International Studies, on November 14, held

a debate attempting to answer the question, “Is China the new su-perpower?” David Lampton of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Aaron Friedberg of Princeton Universi-ty critically debated China’s pros-pects as the new global power. Chi-na’s decade of economic expansion, with the second largest GDP in the world, might lead one to believe that China is in fact the next Unit-ed States. However, these keynote speakers put both China’s recent advances, and problems, in a more global perspective.

The mediator, our own Profes-sor Allen Carlson, asked three major questions: (1) Is China the next su-perpower? (2) What is China’s glob-al impact? And (3) how should the United States respond? While this was supposed to be a vehement de-bate over China’s current and future global power, both speakers had rel-atively similar answers: not yet.

Despite all of China’s econom-ic gains, China has yet to gain the substantial authority a

well-defined superpower main-tains, such as military strength, es-tablished soft power, and a stable government. The economy, though a critically important aspect of a nation’s power, is not solely what makes a superpower dominant. For example, according to the speakers, China has claimed no real desire for global influence other than to main-tain healthy trade. China’s military spending still remains between two

and three percent of its GDP, which is significantly lower than that of the United States.

As such, China’s only substantial increase in power is derived from its continued economic growth. How-ever, according to Communist of-ficials, the economy must continue to grow at a rate of at least 7% each year to maintain a prosperous and stable nation. While China has been successful thus far, this is a very

difficult goal that, if failed to meet, could challenge the political order of the Chinese nation. Therefore, according to the speakers, China’s growth in power comes with sub-stantial obstacles.

Where Professor Lampton and Professor Friedberg differed was their overall opinion on China in regards to American foreign poli-cy. Professor Lampton argued for

patience because of China’s accom-plishments. Forty years ago, China was a completely controlled econo-my under radical Communist rule. Now, China is described as “capital-ism with Chinese characteristics.” China enjoys not only a substantially more free market economy, but also more political freedoms compared to Maoist China. These advances in economic wealth and general free-dom have, according to Lampton,

provided hope for a more politically friendly future for China.

Professor Friedberg, on the other hand, argued for a more balanced approach to China. According to Friedberg, China has become much more capitalistic and progressive, but America must maintain a bal-ance between power politics and economic placidity. China is not a democratic nation, and thus Ameri-ca must maintain global dominance in the face of Chinese aggressions. But this must not destroy the Unit-ed States’ and China’s intertwined economies.

China is no doubt a rising player on the global stage. With a quarter of the world’s population, and a sky-rocketing economy, China certainly has promise. But its government is also faced with major obstacles. A growing economy and an increase in middle class citizens has put sub-stantial pressure on the Communist government to reform, and econom-ic inequalities threaten to divide the nation. It is difficult to be both com-munist and capitalist, and only the future will determine if China really is the next superpower.

Bill Snyder is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at wjs254@cornell.edu.

Campus

Is China the Next Superpower?Bill SynderStaff Writer

Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation,

was recently sponsored by the ILR Alumni Affairs and Development to talk on campus about what she believes it means to be pro-choice. The main point of her lecture was that “freedom of choice is more than a right, it is right,” and Saporta at-tempted to illustrate this with ex-amples of women who needed abor-tions for health or financial reasons. Rather than desiring that abortion be safe, legal, and rare, Mrs. Sapor-ta’s talk indicated that it should be safe, legal, and widely accessible.

Saporta highlighted the cases where women have needed abor-tions for health or finance reasons. In terms of health reasons, she cited both physical and emotional health issues—a woman who needed che-motherapy and a woman who had been raped. She also decried the murder of Dr. George Tiller and seven other abortion providers. The struggles of women should not be dismissed, nor should the violence

that led to eight murders be con-doned. But neither should the deaths of millions of babies by way of abor-tion or infanticide be taken lightly.

Many conservatives are willing to allow abortion in cases of rape, incest, or safety of the mother. It is unlikely that the legalization of abortion will ever be reversed, for institutions, once placed, usually are not. However, not every abortion is caused by rape, incest, or danger to the mother. This is evident not only in the United States, but in many countries—most notably in China.

This year, China underwent a transition in leadership, and women now make up about twenty-five per-cent of the political leadership. The

figure is not too alarming, because the United States has an even lower percentage of women in govern-ment leadership positions, but NBC reported a growing concern about China’s “missing girls.” Because of

the country’s one child poli-cy, many couples decided their only child had to be a boy.

Though for many years it was illegal in China to learn a ba-by's gender before birth, many did so anyway, and if the unborn was fe-male, an abortion may be performed. Even worse, if an ultrasound was not done to determine the child's sex, baby girls were killed shortly after birth. The male to female ratio, now around 6 to 5, is expected to cause a “huge societal issue.” Around a third of women in one village in China ad-

mitted to having abortions for sex selection.

There is an argument that abor-tion has helped women in emergen-cy situations, and it is true that for many women, having reproductive

control (not just abortions, but less-controversial forms of birth con-trol as well) has allowed them to sit at the tables of government leader-ship. But there are mothers who are leaders in government, including the “Mom Communists” in China. Many women who marry and have children choose to focus on rais-ing their kids, and it can be difficult, though certainly not impossible, for mothers to be politicians. But when the use of methods of reproductive control becomes too extreme, it does not allow women to sit at the tables of leadership: it prevents them from doing so, as the millions of baby girls killed by abortion or infanticide might tell you if they could.

Katie Johnson is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kij5@cornell.edu.

“Missing Girls”Katie Johnsontreasurer

Ladies’ Liberty

Around a third of women in one village in China admitted to having abortions for sex selection.

asia

new

s.it

Saporta Misses the Mark During Talk at Cornell

Professors Discuss the Sleeping Dragon's Next Step

China enjoys not only a substantially more free market economy, but also more political freedoms compared to Maoist China.

* * *

December 4, 2012 5

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Campus

the suburbs, this regulation would work fine, but we’re talking about apartments for students in an urban neighborhood. The other 60% of the land is valuable and should be used to increase the supply of housing. Without this regulation, developers would have more freedom in pro-viding the kind of housing students want according to their needs, lead-ing to maximum efficiency.

Finally, most of Collegetown has a building height restriction of four stories, with a few places allowed six stories. A regulation in build-ing height again limits the devel-oper’s creativity in providing more housing at a better quality for lower rents. This would occur without de-creasing the developer’s profit, as it allows for lower marginal building costs per unit. It is also much more environmentally friendly and eco-nomically sustainable—two char-acteristics the city of Ithaca should strive to promote.

Thus, deregulating land use within the city would encourage creativity in the private sector. It falls upon our elected officials to understand the students’ voice and realize that the housing restrictions are crippling the student experi-ence and greater Ithaca economy. Encouraging innovation in real es-tate development is the only way to bring about real housing reform in Ithaca and throughout the United States.

Michael Loffredo is a sophomore in the College of Architecture and Art Planning. He can be reached at mjl343@cornell.edu.

Continued from the front page

Collegetown

Earlier this month, celebrated conservative pundit and one of

the founding editors of the Cornell Review Ann Coulter was denied an invitation by Fordham University and snubbed for her allegedly “hate-ful and provocative” rhetoric.

The College Republicans at Ford-ham had invited Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. But the CRs were left astounded when President Joseph McShane attacked them for their decision with a “Uni-versity Statement on Ann Coulter Appearance”. In his statement, Fa-ther McShane made it clear that he was disappointed by the students’ decision and that Fordham would not tolerate any “hate speech” on campus. He added that he would not like to censor Coulter from speaking but questioned the “judgment and maturity” of the students and en-couraged them to cancel the event on their own.

Left with few choices, the Col-lege Republicans capitulated and re-scinded their invitation to Coulter. In an open letter addressed to the entire campus community, the club apologized for their failure to re-search Coulter’s political positions, which are apparently “inconsistent with the ideals of the College Re-publicans”. For this, they received a letter of congratulations from the president, who declared that there could have been “no finer testament

to the value of a Fordham education and the caliber of our students”. He ap-plauded the students for passing their “test of char-acter” with distinction and for “engaging in an impas-sioned but overwhelming-ly civil debate on politics, academic freedom, and freedom of speech.”

Fordham’s blatant double stan-dards were exposed when the Dean of the College invited the controver-sial Princeton professor Peter Sing-er to speak on a panel about “ani-mal ethics.” Peter Singer is a curious character who combines his aggres-sive defense of animal rights with his support for bestiality, active eutha-nasia, and the murder of innocent human beings. Given his radical and disturbing views on ethics, the man even refused to care for his mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, fearing that if he took responsibil-ity, his mother might not continue to live. But regardless of Singer’s views, which stand in direct conflict with our Constitutional values, the col-lege website hailed him as “the most influential philosopher alive today.” It is testimony to McShane’s aston-ishing line of reasoning that he finds Coulter’s pro-life views incompati-ble with the ideals of Fordham while celebrating the greatest advocate of infanticide known to the world.

It seems clear that McShane’s conduct was a great blow to the

spirit of academic and intellectual freedom in which our colleges take pride. Besides being in opposition to the values that a Jesuit institution like Fordham claims to stand for, this unashamed suppression of free speech also unmasked the true face of liberal intolerance.

What is even more regrettable is that the Fordham Republicans, de-spite facing dissent from their ranks, failed to hold their ground and can-celled the event. In the light of the dismal state of intellectual discourse on college campuses, the staff of the Review unanimously condemns Fordham’s politically motivated suppression of freedom of expres-sion and sincerely hopes that this incident does not set a dangerous precedent for other institutions to follow.

Kushagra Aniket is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ka337@cornell.edu. The author gives due credit to Pro-fessor William Jacobson of the Law School for breaking this news on his blog “College Insurrection”.

Kushagra AniketNational News Editor

Coulter ‘84 Denied Invitation by FordhamPresident Strikes at Intellectual Freedom

I recently attended the last meet-ing of the semester of Student As-

sembly. At this meeting there were a variety of resolutions passed, some of very suspicious merit. But given my last post regarding diversity, it has come to my attention that some people may misconstrue the Cornell Review for simply attacking the Stu-dent Assembly. As such, this post will both speak against some of the initiatives that have been passed as well as give credit where credit is due.

One of the major resolutions dis-cussed was the expansion of the Students Helping Students grant. I applaud the Student Assembly for making this grant more available. It provides more students with pri-vately donated funding to help stu-dents in their time of need. This ini-tiative also seems to provide more

assistance to a wider variety of stu-dents, whom the university would be unable to help. As such, this is not only a very beneficial resolution for the university, but it is also a pro-gram more students should be aware of. Another initiative I would like to promote is Resolution 22, regard-ing a more comprehensive health and safety information sessions during Orientation Week. This is a very useful program that the univer-sity should be more involved with and it is a relatively simple process that helps the majority of students. Again, my hat goes off to Student As-sembly for making sure these initia-tives are discussed and passed.

However, Student Assembly did discuss a particularly suspicious issue, that being the social justice re-quirement. Student Assembly is cur-rently working towards requiring

every student to take a class that involves social justice. This line of thought is particularly troublesome because I believe most students are unaware that this is occurring, and thus Student Assembly may be purs-ing an initiative that most students really don’t want. In any case, the social justice requirement is the em-bodiment of political correctness and liberal bias in higher education institutions. What is social justice? If it is programs that involve govern-ment or otherwise systematic cor-recting of social behavior, then this is a particularly dangerous and ques-tionable program. Furthermore, to force students to take more class-es that will provide either no ben-efit or even harm to their education is a goal Student Assembly certain-ly should not be spearheading. As such, I would ask every student to

evaluate the work they do at the uni-versity? If they dislike a particular aspect of their education, then they should question who is responsible because it may be something you can prevent.

With any institution that has power, there is bound to be benefi-cial and harmful actions put for-ward. As a student journalist, it is my job to highlight the damag-ing initiatives for the students. But there should always be room for pointing out the good that any orga-nization does. And it is my hope that the Student Assembly will recognize this as well.

Bill Synder is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at wjs254@cor-nell.edu.

Applauding the Good and Criticizing the BadBill SynderStaff Writer

Resolution 27 - Expanding Availability of the Students Helping Students Grant

6 December 4, 2012

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Over the course of the semester, Cor-nell has seen several high profile and

horrific acts of sexual violence on cam-pus. These acts are sadly a consistent part of college life, one that is a terrible blem-ish the institution of Cornell. The student outcry has been appropriate in its sense of public outrage, but has been misguided in many respects.

I would like to mention a couple of things before I start. This article does not mean to diminish the importance of rape awareness or the efforts of many con-cerned citizens on campus. There is ab-solutely no place in this world for such a terrible crime and it is the responsibility of everyone at Cornell to report observed in-cidences of it.

Instead, this article is written to provide clarity on rape in general, and to stress ef-fective allocation of both personal and fi-nancial resources.

Nationally, the incidence of rape has been flat over time. Although there was an uptick during the 1960s and 1970s, since the 1980s the overall rate has been flat. As you can see in Chart 1 and Regression 3, the rate of rape is not sensitive to the passing of time, common causes of crime in general, or standard prevention strat-egies. While there is a degree of variance in the overall rate, nationally the average has been flat at 48.8 per 100,000 since the 1980s. Also, please note that, while I have provided Regression 2, which shows an in-creasing rate of rape, to show the progres-sion of analysis, in my mind Regression 3 employs the proper method of analysis.

While there is a higher degree of vari-ance within Cornell reported sexual as-sault data, as well as a more limited data set, a basic analysis indicates that on aver-age, there are between two and three forc-ible rapes on campus per annum. This in-dicates that the acts of sexual violence over the semester have not deviated from the five-year average.

Given this fact, it is safe to say that the student and administrative response has been due to the public nature of the at-tacks, not a statistically significant spike in the number of rapes.

As an institution, Cornell is naturally

very interested in preserving its reputa-tion. And as buyers of a Cornell education, this is very important to students as well. That does not mean that Cornell does not care about sexual violence on campus, but the school has multiple priorities.

Take for example, the issue of suicide on campus. Due to a series of high profile deaths, Cornell decided to spend a large amount of money putting up fences and installing nets to stop jumpers. This hap-pened despite the fact that Cornell has a statistically normal suicide rate and that there is no conclusive evidence showing that nets prevent suicides. While there is a possibility that Cornell has better num-bers than I do, the decision more like-ly was designed to shore up the school’s

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I think it is safe to say that the student and administrative response has been due to the public nature of the attacks, not a statistically significant spike in the number of rapes.

Sexual Violence at Cornell

Chart 2

Chart 1

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December 4, 2012 7

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Since November 7, at least 14 Ti-betans have set themselves on

fire in protest against Chinese oc-cupation. The most recent incident of self-immolation occurred yester-day in China’s northwest province of Qinghai when Sangdhak Tser-ing, father of a three-year old son, burnt himself alive. Tsering had al-ways told his wife that a life without freedom was not worth living. But amidst clampdown by the Chinese military, Tsering died an unsung death. There were few reports in the media, let alone an international outcry on the issue. The exiled Ti-betan Government in India mourn-ed the death of the immolators while making an appeal to the Tibetans to cherish their lives and carry on their struggle through peaceful forms of protest, irrespective of the magni-tude of oppression.

The history of the repression of the Tibetan people is as brutal yet as simple as you can get in this world. There is no doubt that over the last 60 years, Beijing has not only de-nied the Tibetans’ demands for self-determination but also suppressed their language, religious identity and civil liberties. But Tibetans have never retaliated with violence of any comparable degree. They have never taken civilians as hostages, never launched missile attacks on China and never committed atrocities on dissenters. Not surprisingly, there are no Buddhist suicide bombers in the world. Yet the Tibetan cause for independence has never received as much attention and support from the international community. Today there is no country in the world that claims to stand for the rights of the Tibetan people.

But while nations are constrained to pursue their own diplomatic in-terests, there is nothing that stops people living in democratic societies from voicing their support for Tibet. In the wake of the recent incidents of self-immolation, there should have been at least a small demonstration

of solidarity with the peo-ple of Tibet at Cornell. Even a small ges-ture of support from the stu-dent commu-nity and from the numerous Asian organiza-tions on campus could have con-veyed a power-ful message to the people of Tibet, whose spiritual lead-er Dalai Lama has a seat at the Namgyal Mon-astery in Ithaca.

But even if Tibet seems to be too remote, there was noth-ing to stop us from condemn-ing the massa-cre of 30,000 civilians by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Students at Cornell could have played their own part in pressuring the Obama administration to intervene in Syria and provide military assistance to the opposition forces. Nevertheless, Cornell remained silent. Not a single voice was heard.

It is sill conceivable that some of us might be too busy or too stoic to care about events that have to do with the people of other coun-tries. But on the fateful night of Sep-tember 11, US Ambassador Chris-topher Stevens was assassinated along with several others after Is-lamists attacked the American con-sulate in Benghazi. Regardless of the fact that Stevens had risked his life to ensure the downfall of Gad-hafi’s dictatorship, the militants of Libya did not spare him. But even when all the right thinking citizens of world came together to denounce

the attack on the American consul-ate, most Cornellians had nothing to say apart from offering excuses for a crude and offending video.

So, while I do not condone any acts of violence against innocent people by anyone, the events of the past few days have led me to ask this question: What is so special about Gaza? And what is it that propelled some Cornell students today to come out against the “savage assault Israel is currently carrying out on a nearly defenseless Gaza”? What great force motivated them to renounce their apathetic silence and call on the University administration to issue an official condemnation of Israel? I don’t pretend to know the answers but one should not be afraid to ask difficult questions.

Kushagra Aniket is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be reached at ka337@cornell.edu.

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applications of knowledge. It is al-most never a course requirement, and it is usually pursued directly by the student, for disproportion-ately few credits, with little to no help from the standardized curricu-la. In fact, it is the antithesis of the requirement. It competes directly with distribution courses on eager students’ schedules.

Now, read once more the Arts school’s claim about liberal educa-tion: “…change the way you think, challenge your assumptions, and make you take a deeper look at the world around you…prepare you for a lifetime of intellectual growth and adventure.” It could just as easily be talking about research. What is

the value in such a broad claim? It seems more likely that the supposed worldliness and mental hunger of Arts students is merely an artifact of selection bias, those socially-minded students having applied to the Arts school in the first place.

There is a great deal to learn from requirements in the humanities and elsewhere, but it is imperative that students be allowed to seek men-tal maturity in their field of choice. Would the productivity and average GPA of Engineering students go up if they could replace their humani-ties with study time or sleep? Would students get more out of a stint at the Cornell Daily Sun or the Cornell Review in lieu of a Freshman Writ-ing Seminar? How many students ever use their foreign language for more hours than they spent learning it? Getting to the core of the matter:

how many students actually want requirements, regardless of whether or not they enjoy them?

We should be frightened that so many basic questions remain about the validity and cost-effectiveness of broad requirements, especially amidst high graduate unemploy-ment, increasing tuition, and a world increasingly in need of advanced professionals. In the absence of data on requirements, our colleges ought to look to their own critical, public-benefit-driven programs—the ones we came for—rather than burning credits at the altar of Arts & Sciences.

Lucas Policastro is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences, and is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Review. He can be reached at ljp74@cornell.edu.

reputation and legal liability. The Onion summed it up well in an ar-ticle about our suicide prevention nets: “I imagine nets are probably more cost-effective than providing suicidal students with psychiatric care and medicine.”

The same is true of the school’s response to rape on campus, and the student governments’ response to other high profile incidents. Efforts to expand the Blue Light Shuttle service, while popular among cer-tain representatives, would have no impact on the rate of rape on cam-pus, even if successful. While the expansion might change the nature of the attacks slightly, I think even that is a stretch. Meanwhile, it is a costly measure ($395 a night) that creates the illusion of safety, rather than true safety. The same can be said about late night monitors and other preventative measures the Assembly proposed.

My article so far has not dealt with the issues of date rape and un-reported rape. These are definitely matters that needs to be dealt with. In my mind, they are areas of sex-ual violence in which preventative measures can actually reduce the overall rate of rape. However, little that the administration or Assem-bly has proposed will impact that type of crime.

The last thing to note is, of course, certain articles and initia-tives promoted by members of the student body, such as “education-al” seminars on rape for freshman and even Cornell employees. While it would be premature to comment on any initiative without knowing program content, here are a couple of thoughts. First, the Cornell party scene has drastically changed over the last two years, and this fact indi-cates that maybe blanket education initiatives are irrelevant for a large portion of the student body. Sec-ond, I have doubts about how effec-tive such initiatives would actually be. For better or worse, Alcohol and drugs tend to cause people to for-get tedious freshman information sessions. Finally, I think that such efforts would ignore more effec-tive rape prevention strategies such as responsible drinking, the buddy system, and generally safety-con-scious behavior.

Sexual violence on campus is something we as a student body need to combat in every element of our lives. Although proposed ef-forts are appealing, they are cost-ly and not the most effective mea-sures. What we need is a true dialogue about sexual violence on campus, not freshman lectures. While I am not sure what an open discourse should look like, or how to implement one, I do know that a top down approach is not going to change mindsets or behavior.

Contact the Review at cornellre-view@cornell.edu.

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Continued from the front page

Requirements

What’s So Special About Gaza?Kushagra AniketNational News Editor

"I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land." —Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President

8 December 4, 2012

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Opinion8

The Supreme Court is poised to potentially make affirmative ac-

tion a violation of the Equal Protec-tion Clause. Prepare yourselves: the Left is going to have an aneurysm. But it really shouldn’t—a ruling mak-ing affirmative action a violation of the Equal Protection Clause would be less about racists “winning” and more about a positive shift in society.

For some time, the Supreme Court has accepted affirmative ac-tion in the way party-goers han-dle a drunk, vomiting fratboy: they have tolerated it, albeit with great disdain. Current affirmative action law hinges around two cases—Grut-ter v. Bollinger (2003) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978)—that essentially hold that, under strict scrutiny analy-sis, affirmative action by the State is legal only insofar as government actors consider race, but do not cre-ate quotas for specific racial groups or ethnicities. At the moment, this logic is still good law, but in Grut-ter, Justice O’Connor explicitly gave it a sunset provision: “We ex-pect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the inter-est approved today.” The Grutter Court wasn’t kidding around about this time limitation: it explicitly re-quired that current affirmative ac-tion programs have a “logical end point” and be “limited in time.”

In other words, under the exact-ing standards of the Court’s strict scrutiny test, affirmative action is only justified as a temporary fix to fight the specter of pervasive rac-ism in society, and as that specter recedes and America becomes less divided, the State becomes less and less justified in implementing affir-mative action programs.

Nearly ten years later, the Court may be poised to declare that the specter has (at least somewhat) re-ceded and that strict scrutiny no lon-ger permits affirmative action. The Court recently granted certiorari in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case involving two women who allege that they were denied admission to

the University of Texas because its admissions program took race into account (and thus, at least by infer-ence, equally or less qualified ap-plicants were admitted instead of the two women due to their race). The fact that the Court even grant-ed certiorari in this case is strong evidence that the Court wishes to re-analyze Grutter, leading many commentators to believe that Grut-ter may soon die a quick death and affirmative action by the State may be henceforth declared a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.

Is the death of Grutter a desir-able result? Yes, regardless of the fact that discrimination may still exist today.

Grutter and cases before it—even Brown v. Board of Education—were decided with the image of historical racism in mind, and the entire con-cept of affirmative action was struc-

tured around the idea that certain minority groups in America need-ed help fighting against discrimina-tion that was sewn into the fabric of American society. In this sense, affirmative action was not a per-fect solution or even a great one—it was a Band-Aid slapped on a bleed-ing wound in society implemented in order to fix a massive issue that couldn’t be remedied with slow surgical precision.

But today, discrimination is shifting in form, and affirmative ac-tion may very well be holding back societal recovery.

At its worst, discrimination in America was institutionalized in the law—from restrictive property deeds to elections. This discrimi-nation manifested itself in educa-tion, from explicitly “black schools” to de facto segregation of minori-ties in school districts. But dis-crimination is becoming less insti-tutional and more cultural. While

African-Americans may no longer have to worry about being delib-erately pushed into a segregated school, they now deal with a culture that promotes “us-vs.-them” think-ing through music lyrics, “ethnic” television shows/channels, and the like. Affirmative action isn’t exactly poised to fix a racist culture—it just (at least theoretically) helps fight against the systemic manifestation of historical racism in education. Thus, while affirmative action may have been a valuable approach to fighting societal racism as early as ten years ago, it is increasingly less so today as racism changes in form and effect and as schools are less blatantly segregated.

The problem is that affirmative action, in many ways, encourages the us-vs.-them mentality that can foster the cultural discrimination which erodes society. When uni-

versities across America blatant-ly give imaginary points to appli-cants of a different race, they draw lines in the sand between races, determining who is a “minority” and who is in the nebulous “major-ity.” Admitted and unquestionably qualified “minority” students often find themselves with an imaginary asterisk placed upon their admis-sion to a prestigious school by those suspecting their admission was the result of affirmative action instead of hard work and intelligence. Pro-grams like those operated at the University of Texas are sometimes blatantly racist, making question-able decisions like lumping all ap-plicants from Asian countries into an “Asian” category despite the enormous variety of cultures pres-ent in Asia. And, as a recent article in the New York Times noted, af-firmative action has caused signifi-cant harm to Asian-Americans, who are frequently finding themselves

rejected to schools of their choice as those schools deliberately avoid admitting a disproportionately “Asian” entering class. In other words, where the government has forced various racial and ethnic groups apart through programs like affirmative action, it has discour-aged those same groups from merg-ing back together.

If we want to help minority ap-plicants be competitive in the ap-plication pools of top schools, the solution to the problem is fixing the terrible public school systems that under-serve these students, not as-signing imaginary points. Minori-ties wouldn’t need imaginary Uni-versity of Texas-style points if local school boards—especially those in inner cities—did not create cess-pit schools filled with incompetent (yet somehow tenured) teachers and hopeless students. Why should affirmative action fix on the back end what reform (or even privatiza-tion) of public schools could fix on the front end?

Admittedly, there very well may be some purposes served by affir-mative action, and the proverbial bleeding wound of discrimination may very well have not sealed up like many think it has. Nonetheless, now more than ever, it appears that affir-mative action may cause more harm than it causes good. Fisher v. Uni-versity of Texas isn’t about whether discrimination exists, it isn’t about WASPs trying to take over Ameri-ca, and it certainly isn’t an attempt at bringing back Jim Crow laws. It is about society growing and considering ripping off the Band-Aid. It seems like it’s about time.

Kirk Sigmon is a graduate student in the Law School. He can be reached at kas468@cornell.edu.

Kirk SigmonColumnist

Right on the Law

The Affirmative Action Band-Aid

The problem is that affirmative action, in many ways, encourages the us-vs.-them mentality that can foster cultural discrimination which erodes society.

December 4, 2012 9

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Opinion

Roberto Matos Columnist

The Clarion CallAs with most things, the 2012

election’s outcome should be examined through the lens of a de-cidedly historical interpretation. Therefore, we shall seek the an-swers to our questions in the past, for our upcoming future was pre-dicted more than a century ago, and by a foreigner at that.

During his travels across the United States, which was still in its embryonic stages during the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville’s aristocrat-ic convictions were challenged by the utterly unique and exception-al political culture he encountered here on the bustling North Ameri-can continent. There can be little doubt that he was impressed with the economic opportunities associ-ated with upward social mobility of-fered in the States, and found stimu-lating the narrative of the “Common Man”, which was embodied in the life of the illustrious President An-drew Jackson.

But Tocqueville did not hesi-tate to express some disquiet about what he defined as the potential for the “tyranny of the majority” to dominate and for the emergence of a so-called neo-aristocracy of man-ufactures which might tyrannize the citizenry. These worries have been exhaustively and tirelessly dis-cussed by academics in the interven-ing years and will be ignored here.

But one of Tocqueville’s less pub-licized reservations concerned the vulnerability of the democratic citi-zenry itself. His warnings undoubt-edly bear quite heavily on the elec-toral happenings which recently swept the US and bear just as se-verely on the cultural implications we can now clearly observe.

He asked: Would Americans grow so obsessed with the prom-ises of upward social mobility and the hypnotic narrative of “equal-ity” that they would ultimately be willing to sacrifice their liberties to an all-encompassing and ostensibly benevolent mega-state in exchange for promises to secure their mate-rial comfort and protect them from the rigors of the civic landscape? After all, if the citizenry is so moved by its infatuation with material ac-quisitions and personal effects, it would surely be prone to voluntari-ly surrender its agency and power to the government in order to secure the abundant benefits of the state. Tocqueville feared that the people would be bribed.

Indeed, promised Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, the day would come when conditions would motivate the citizenry to turn in complete exasperation, after shal-low disillusionment with “freedom”,

and eagerly seek to inaugurate the rise of an “‘immense and tutelary power”, which “takes it upon it-self” to “secure [their] gratifica-tions, and [which would] watch over [their] fate.” Hoping to be parented and spoon fed for the sake of placat-ing their growing list of petty tastes and material demands, the citizenry would sow the seeds of its own fu-ture domination by willingly sur-rendering its powers to an expan-sive, growing, parentally benevolent guardian.

Hence, the citizens will embrace a culture of dependence by becom-ing co-conspirators in their own un-doing: the state will in effect “keep [them] in perpetual childhood” out of overweening concern for their own welfare.

Instead of relying on individu-al initiative and self-determination, the democratic citizenry can now be said to hail the state as its “sole agent and the only arbiter of [its] happi-ness.” This scenario is pitifully iron-ic (and sounds remarkably familiar to modern observers), because the

formerly free citizens shall slowly slide into a state of firm dependence on its overlords ruling the state ap-paratus, and this robs them of their free thinking and freely-wielded fac-ulties, and hence “free agency” is the primary and ultimate victim of this new arrangement: “Thus it every-day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradu-ally robs a man of all the uses of him-self.” It “reduces [them] to be noth-ing better than a flock of timid [...] animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Tocqueville's clairvoyance clearly extended to the 21st century. He ac-curately envisioned the emergence of an all-encompassing nanny state that would, in the spirit of benevo-lence, “provide for their security, foresee and supply their necessi-ties, facilitates their pleasures, man-age their principal concerns, direct their industry, regulate their descent of property, and subdivides their in-heritances. What remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living.”

In light of the Frenchman’s warn-ings, we can now declare with con-fidence that the foundation of the American political tradition has ir-reparably shifted its course and, frankly, its cultural trajectory, just as was predicted. The bulk of the American electorate now appears to no longer be motivated by the stout and reliable ethos of rugged individ-ualism, personal agency, and self-re-liance. The recent election’s results bespeak the fundamental senti-ment of our new national character, one we can now characterize as the cheerful surrender of our national exceptionalism.

Once animated and spiritually motivated by promises premised on the principles of free enterprise and cultural independence from external societal “assistance” (mostly Federal interference), key demographics of the American political community have enthusiastically celebrated the replacement of the entrepreneurial culture with both the entitlement culture and the victimization nar-rative (the culture of excuse-mak-

ing). They now insist upon the rapid acceleration of policies consistent with Cultural Marxism. They now embrace what Tocqueville astutely branded “perpetual childhood”. The cozy crib of the ostensibly benevo-lent governmental parent is simply too irresistible. Contrasting the two philosophies, Tocqueville wrote, “That power is absolute [...] provi-dent [...] and its object [is] to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in per-petual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, pro-vided that they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors”—meanwhile, the skills of its citizens atrophy due to open refusal to cul-tivate and work in the name of self-reliance and personal autonomy. In-dependence be damned!

In short, the once venerated nar-rative of personal initiative was ut-terly rejected in a second straight election. What is more, policies geared toward empowering both the private sector and the private citizenry to innovatively cultivate its ingenuity through aggressive re-moval of restrictive and burdensome

impositions by the government seem to have been successfully rebuffed. Terms like “job creation”, “person-al responsibility” and “self reliance” are either scoffed at or construed as selfishly provincial concepts. Any statesmen caught using them are dismissed, ruthlessly belittled, dubbed heartless, denounced as cruel and greedy, and altogether condemned as anachronistic.

The children of the entitlement culture yearn for the expansion of their safety net regardless of the costs, regardless of the price their own creative capacities experience. Eagerly seeking gratification from their bureaucratic parents, they now wallow in the culture of de-pendence, perpetual childhood and voluntary surrender of their own abilities, and await the spoils of class antagonism. This seems remi-niscent of what Tocqueville brands timid flocks of animals refusing to elevate themselves to manhood (workhood).

Hence, the steadily intensifying vilification of the tradition of ro-bustly individualistic self-reliance has become mainstream rhetorical fodder for the consumption of the masses and election campaigns of cunning public officials (not states-men). We are helpless to deny that for decades our academic establish-ment, our elite press outlets, and our entertainment mediums (popu-lar culture) have cleverly pursued a strategy aimed toward undermining the cornerstones of self-reliance by large and expanding segments of the electorate. These new segments are nothing more than “an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives”, as Toc-queville warned. They voluntarily sow the seeds of their own subser-vience, and have become the enthu-siastic architects of their own spiri-tual degradation.

Roberto Matos is a sophomore in the School of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at rlm387@cornell.edu.

A Warning from the 19th Century RevisitedTocqueville’s Prophecy Fulfilled

Hoping to be parented and spoon fed for the sake of placating their growing list of petty tastes and material demands, the citizenry would sow the seeds of its own future domination by willingly surrendering its powers to an expansive, growing, parentally benevolent guardian.

10 December 4, 2012

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I’ve been told it’s time to take the Romney sticker off my laptop and

face reality. Looking back at this election season, I’m still unsure ex-actly when things went wrong. It seemed so certain: we had a Presi-dent with over eight percent unem-ployment competing against a can-didate with a clear plan to produce jobs. Despite this fact, over sixty-two million people chose to reelect President Obama.

In losing, we have been given an opportunity to learn, and now have four years to produce a candidate who is able to attract a wide range of voters. For some, considering who will run in 2016 is a conversation for

a future date. But for me, the

future is all that we have to look for-ward to.

There is one Republican, in my mind, who would be an exception-al Presidential candidate: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal. Though he has not formally announced his can-didacy, Governor Jindal recently obtained national coverage by crit-icizing Governor Romney’s “gift” comments and argued that Repub-licans must fight for each vote and must stop saying stupid things.

To some, the 2012 election was proof that Republican ideals are no longer desired in this country. Gov-ernor Jindal, on the other hand, is arguing that success for Republi-cans will come not from a change in ideology, but a change in rhetoric. From statements about the forty-seven percent of Americans to asser-tions of “legitimate” rape, conserva-tives this election season have found various ways to alienate voters who may have ultimately agreed with their core beliefs. Instead of using

offensive slogans, Jindal believes that conservatives must develop de-tailed policy initiatives and trust the intelligence of voters to make the right decision.

Further, Jindal is an individu-al that can inspire two groups that the Republicans failed to attract during the 2012 election: the youth and minorities. A minority who is the son of Indian American immi-grants, Jindal’s early success, from his Rhodes Scholarship to his two-term governorship, has given him an inspiring background that, coupled with his views, can attract minori-ties, college students, and also the more typical conservatives.

As an Asian-American, I am personally inspired by Governor Jindal’s brilliance, success, and steadfast belief in his ideals. Though I don’t agree with all of his views, he has proven to be an effective leader in the State of Louisiana, improving the health care system there while cutting its costs. Additionally, he

understands that the rhetoric of the Republican Party must return to its core value of inspiring Americans towards the American Dream.

So, before I can take off my Rom-ney sticker and face reality, I want to be assured that my laptop can soon advertise the name of a capa-ble Republican candidate like Bobby Jindal.

Karim Lakhani is a junior in the School of Hotel Administration. He can be reached at kml248@cornell.edu.

National

Our nation decided the answers to many questions on Novem-

ber 6th, some more publicized than others. One that perhaps did not get the publicity it deserved was Cali-fornia’s Proposition 35. Nominally a proposal to increase the penalties for sex trafficking, Prop 35 contained another provision that should have been—though apparently wasn’t—very controversial.

Namely, Prop 35 requires all reg-istered sex offenders (not just those convicted of sex trafficking) to con-tinuously register their Internet ser-vice providers and identifiers (such as user names) with the government.

Disturbingly enough, no one—not even the proposition’s eerily rare opponents—seemed to notice this egregious civil rights violation until after it passed with an overwhelm-ing 81% of the vote. To their credit, the American Civil Liberties Union did come out against Prop 35 and has now filed a lawsuit to stay its en-forcement. However, their involve-ment could have and should have been much more public. It is beyond me, for instance, why the ACLU didn’t write against the proposition in California’s voter information booklet. This booklet is published by the office of the California Sec-retary of State, is available online, and is distributed to registered vot-ers statewide. It contains summaries of each proposition on the ballot, as

well as arguments for and against each submitted by various support-ers and opponents.

But the ACLU wasn’t featured

in the pamphlet as an opponent of Prop 35. In fact, the only ones writ-ing against it were Norma Jean Al-modovar, Starchild, and the presi-dent and CFO of an organization called Erotic Service Providers Legal, Education, and Research Project, Inc.

For those who do not know, Norma Jean Almodovar is a former Los An-geles police officer, the title of whose book From Cop to Call Girl pretty

much says it all. And Starchild, too, is an “erotic services provider” and an outspoken Libertarian activist.

On the other hand, proponents arguing for Prop 35 in the voter booklet included multiple self-pro-claimed human trafficking survivors,

the California Police Chiefs Associa-tion, and a county District Attorney.

So, you don’t need a degree in po-litical science to be able to tell who was winning the PR war on Prop 35. If you could call it a war—or even a low-grade military action. Accord-ing to a California PBS station, not a single financial contribution to an anti-35 group was ever reported. And this is opposed to the over 200 contributions reported to have been made in support of Prop 35.

Among Prop 35’s financial back-ers were the National Education As-sociation and the California Teach-ers Union, whose political clout in the state could possibly help explain the lack of public opposition to the proposal.

The take-away point from all this, though, is that there were virtually no visible opponents to Prop 35 who were not involved with the sex in-dustry. And even those opponents, in their voter booklet arguments, did not cite the requirement that sex of-fenders register their online identifi-cation information with the state as a reason to vote against it.

California’s normally vocal and tumultuous political community was curiously quiet about this issue and seemed curiously unaware of the dangerous precedent Prop 35 sets for the privacy rights they are nor-mally so adamant about protecting.

With any luck, this issue and oth-ers like it will not remain out of the spotlight, for the day we as citizens start ignoring small but definite at-tempts to revoke our civil rights and liberties, will be a dark one for de-mocracy and for human freedom.

Lucia Rafanelli is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at lmr93@cornell.edu.

Under the RadarCalifornia’s Silent Stand Against Civil RightsLucia RafanelliManaging Editor

A Fortnight of Follies

Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University

[T]he day we as citizens start ignoring small but definite attempts to revoke our civil rights and liberties will be a dark one for democracy and for human freedom.

Too Soon to Think About 2016?Karim LakhaniPresident

Coffee with Karim

A Case for Governor Bobby Jindal

December 4, 2012 11

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Insider

CORNELLINSIDER.com

Freshman year, I was first introduced to Alex Bores through his Student Trustee campaign rap video. It featured Bores in different spots on campus, both dancing and passionately conversing with students. He went on to win the position, and since then has had a major presence on campus. This morning, Bores sat down to talk with me in the Ivy Room about his experience as a student leader (or, as he would rather be called, “someone who is involved in the student’s governance process”.) In his personable interview, Bores reveals how he became so involved on campus. He also shares advice for future Student Trustees as well as other ambitious freshmen. Finally, he discusses his plans for the future after graduation this year.

To my disappointment, no rapping or dance moves were involved.

Review: Let’s start off with your background. Among other things, you are involved in Cornell Forensics, which is ranked #1 in the world. You have served as the elected Student Trustee. What is your story on how you got involved on campus?

Bores: When I came to Cornell, I had very different ideas of what I wanted to get involved with than what I ended up getting involved with. I had done high school debate, and thought I was sick of it. I’d had enough of people yelling at each other- but found this team and really fell in love with it. To synthesize the story, I went to Club Fest my freshman year and, I think like most freshman, fell in love with fifty different clubs and signed up for way too many list-serves, some of which I am still trying to get off of. After that, I tried everything, and tried to whittle it down to the things I really wanted to do and happened to find this, perhaps diverse group, of activities that I really liked.

Review: Do you feel like you have made an impact on campus?

Bores: I hope so. What goes on in the Board of Trustees is somewhat behind closed doors. Which is both beneficial – in that you can discuss how you honestly feel – but also obviously has its downsides. One of the things that I am most proud of on the board is that I pushed to have more student involvement; to try to open it up a little. As a result of those efforts, the student assembly president and graduate and professional student assembly president will be able to attend all of the student life committees, academic affair meetings, and full board meetings and see all of the confidential information- the same kind of latitude that’s allowed for the deans of the colleges. Additionally, we are now going to have twice-a-year meetings between fifteen students and the trustee leadership and more communication between the two groups.

Review: Who are the fifteen students?

Bores: Those are chosen as they come by the Student Trustees. We’ve had three of those meetings so far, and Darrick and I are trying to choose different students. 15 students for 3 different meetings is a total of 45 possible spots, and I think we’ve only had 3 repeats among those. So we try to spread it out as much as possible to try to get as much opinion as we can.

Review: Would you consider yourself a student leader?

Bores: To be honest, I kind of hate the term “student leader” because it implies for some reason that student government is the way to lead, when there are so many incredibly cool things that people are doing on campus- leading in engineering fields or in theater, or doing things that I have absolutely no talent for. So, I would say that I am “someone who is involved in the student’s governance process.” I would like that term better than student leader.

Review: The next Student Trustee election is approaching. What characteristics should the student body look for when voting for a candidate?

Bores: I’ve actually been thinking about what advice I could give to the next group. I think that, if you want to talk basic characteristics, you need to be confident. You need to be able to talk to people who are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and be able to say “no, actually this is how we should do things.” But you also need to be respectful. If you come in there, and it’s your way or the highway, you are not going to win anyone over. It’s not a position that has executive power and you need to work with others. The Student Trustee is not a pure advocate. You need to be able to always look at the good of the institution as a whole. You need to be able to balance these interests and be able to have some of your friends perhaps question what you’re doing, because you’re not always advocating for them.

Review: Were you ever criticized by your friends, as you mentioned?

Bores: Perhaps. I try to say my position on everything as openly as possible. The example I tend to bring up is that I voted for the tuition increase in January. Largely, because Cornell has a policy of holding your costs if you’re on financial aid, so if the tuition goes up and you’re on financial aid, the financial aid covers that entire difference. So it doesn’t hurt the students that really need it, but at the same time, it allows us to spend on faculty and on international programs and on things that students really benefit from. On the flip side, when there were proposals to cut financial aid, I raised a lot of hell. I thought that was a mistake. You also need to realize that you are one of two students on the board and you bring a unique perspective and that it is your job to make sure that that voice is heard on the board level.

Review: What advice would you give to ambitious freshmen who would like to become leaders on campus?

Bores: Definitely go to club fest. You will discover things that you had no idea that you would be interested in. And try a bunch of different things. If you are in your first few months here, try everything, because you don’t know what you will end up liking, and college is a great time to discover that. And if you’ve been here and are settled in, I’d say, once you’ve found a diversity of things that you love, try to focus on a few and really make an impact. If you do that, I think that you will truly enjoy your time at Cornell.

Review: Thank you for the interview. Finally, what are your goals for after graduation, and where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Bores: I’ll be working in New York City next year. I’m hoping to go to Law School at some point soon. And ten years out – we’ll see. Hopefully I’m married and have a few tikes running around. On the professional side, I’m really interested in international trade regulation, labor regulation, and international labor agreements, so hopefully I’m doing something in that field.

An Interview with Alex Bores Posted by Laurel Conrad

Stay Informed. Demand truth. Be an Insider.

Your Student Trustee, Alex Bores

Visit our blog for breaking news and exclusive analysis: cornellinsider.com

12 December 4, 2012

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Wisemen & Fools

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If you are not free to sin, then neither are you free to be virtuous.Milton Friedman

To proclaim oppression and still expect to find the oppressed equally represented among those with historic achievements and contributions is almost a contradiction in terms.Thomas Sowell

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.Thomas Paine

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity.Mahatma Gandhi

If the foundations were destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3

Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a traitor live! Roman Mob (Obama’s voters), Julius Caesar (III.2)

“Who can challenge the rights of the Jews in Palestine? Good Lord, it is really your country.”Yusuf Al-Khalidi, Ottoman Mayor of Jerusalem, 1899

The best way of doing good to poor is not making them easy in poverty, but leading them out of it. Benjamin Franklin

It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains Patrick Henry

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation

for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for

the designs of ambition. Thomas Jefferson

The truth is all might be free if they valued freedom and defended it as they ought. Samuel Adams

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of PaulGeorge Bernard Shaw

Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. I had sooner play cards against a man who was quite sceptical about ethics, but bred to believe that “a gentleman does not cheat,” than against an irreproachable moral philosopher who had been brought up among sharpers.C.S. Lewis, Abolition of Man

Barack ObamaForward, forward, forward....