THE GOOD GUYS ARE IN THE FIGHT:  Despite the grim reports of Marxist style repression on college campuses, there is an active fight-back movement.  We've told you about some groups.  Here's one of the most active.  Give your morale a boost.  Read on, from College Fix: 

One of the most active and relentless alumni free speech groups in the nation — the Cornell Free Speech Alliance — this week dropped a figurative free speech-bomb on its alma mater, publishing a 100-page report calling for sweeping policy changes on campus.

The group reported its email listserv reaches “over 50,000 Cornellians,” mostly alumni, and it has an active leadership board that refuses to accept Cornell’s public-facing claims of supporting free speech, academic freedom and intellectual diversity.

The alliance’s report recommends 20 policy changes, including adding free speech training to freshman orientation, implementing the famous free speech Chicago Principles, eliminating DEI course requirements, removing its anonymous bias reporting system, and providing students robust due process.

The group, which includes some faculty and students, wants campus leadership to also state “words are not physical violence,” and make viewpoint diversity a “prominent objective.”

The alliance argues none of the 20 recommended policies exist at Cornell today. Cornell’s media relations division did not respond to three requests this week from The College Fix seeking comment on the recommendations or the alliance’s efforts.

The alliance plans to harness its massive email list as well as the relationships it has forged with many like-minded organizations, such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Heterodox Academy, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, to continue its public-pressure campaign to force change, the report states.

The recommendations were also submitted to Cornell’s Board of Trustees, including its Chairman Kraig Kayser.

“The problems are real and they are serious,” stated alumnus David Ackerman in the report. “With an embedded monoculture on campus, the independent judgments of the Board of Trustees are now crucial. The Board must act to protect Cornell and its founding principles.”

While Cornell has yet to address the report publicly this week, campus leadership is well aware of the alliance, and in fact has sicced its attorneys on the group.

Over the last year, Cornell attorneys have sent correspondence to the alliance over its use of Cornell imagery as well as its means of obtaining and communicating with alumni emails. In response, the alliance hired an attorney and made a few tweaks, but has continued its work, a source familiar with the situation told The College Fix.

COMMENT:  I'm encouraged by the fact that this spirited group is from Cornell, an Ivy League school.  Ivy League universities, whose original influence came mostly from social standing, not academic genius, have powerful alumni associations to advance their interests, especially in Washington.   The fact that this alumni group is openly criticizing its alma mater will be duly noted as a possible omen of things to come. 

Fighters on our side are getting more active.   They won't get any love notes from the major news outlets, but they're every bit as woke as the wokists. 

August 17,  2023