Monica Cornejo, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication, was forcibly removed from a Cornell University event this week after disrupting a speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter. She is only the latest faculty member to seek to prevent others from hearing opposing views. The question now is what Cornell will do about her conduct.
To its credit, Cornell resolved to reinvite Coulter to speak after a prior event was disrupted by protesters. On March 13, Cornell Provost Michael Kotlikoff stated that:
“Having been deeply troubled by an invited speaker at Cornell (any speaker) being shouted down and unable to present their views, I agreed that there could be few more powerful demonstrations of Cornell’s commitment to free expression than to have Ms. Coulter return to campus and present her views.”
Kotlikoff should be commended for taking a principled stance in favor of free speech.
The question, however, is how he will handle Cornejo. In a 36-second video posted by The College Fix officers indicate that she is under arrest for “disorderly conduct.” According to the site, she repeatedly responded“don’t touch me — do not touch me,” and tells them “I am a faculty member.” (I could not make out the last reported statement on the tape itself).
Cornejo is described in media reports as “one of the first undocumented tenure-track faculty members at Cornell.” She was interrupting a speech by Coulter titled “Immigration: The Conspiracy To End America.”
Her bio states that
“Dr. Monica Cornejo is an Assistant Professor in Interpersonal Communication in the Department of Communication at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Dr. Cornejo’s research uses qualitative and quantitative methodologies to examine the structural barriers that lead to inequities among undocumented immigrants, how undocumented immigrants draw on communication identity management and advocacy strategies to challenge those barriers, and how those strategies relate to undocumented immigrants’ health and wellbeing.
…Dr. Cornejo focuses on teaching students about different ways in which interpersonal communication can reduce or create disparities and inequities in the United States (e.g., discrimination towards sexual orientation minorities and immigrant communities), as well as the strategies members of minoritized communities (and allies, co-conspirators, families) utilize to challenge the disparities and inequities that position minoritized group members in a second-class position.”
I have previously written that universities must draw a clear distinction between free speech and this type of disruptive conduct. Cornejo has every right to protest outside of the event. However, preventing others from speaking or hearing opposing views is not free speech. It is the antithesis of free speech. It will continue until universities show the courage to discipline faculty or students engaging in such conduct.
The removal of Cornejo showed a commitment to free speech by the school. Often schools remain passive or enforce a heckler’s veto in such cases.
Yet, removal alone is not sufficient. Protesters will often plan a series of disruptions to effectively shutdown an event. Moreover, the university stated publicly that it wanted to show that such an event could occur on campus without disruption. This faculty member defied that policy and elected to heckle and disrupt the event.
She is not the first.
Years ago, many of us were shocked by the conduct of University of Missouri communications professor Melissa Click who directed a mob against a student journalist covering a Black Lives Matter event. Yet, Click was hired by Gonzaga University. Since that time, we have seen a steady stream of professors joining students in shouting down, committing property damage, participating in riots, verbally attacking students, or even taking violent action in protests.
Blocking others from speaking is not the exercise of free speech. It is the very antithesis of free speech. Nevertheless, faculty have supported such claims. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned). Even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech.
At Fresno State University public health professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher, recruited students to destroy pro-life messages.
At the University of California Santa Barbara, professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young, who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and received overwhelming support from the students and faculty. She was later honored as a model for women advocates.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez was shown trashing a pro-life display of students.
She was captured on a videotape telling the students that “you’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
Unlike the professor, the students remained calm and respectful. One even said “sorry” to the accusation that being pro-life was triggering for her students.
Rodríguez continued to rave, stating, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.
Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez.
It was only after she later chased reporters with a machete that the college fired Rodríguez. She was then hired by another college.
That of course is the point. She is a professor and was teaching these students that they do not have to allow others to speak if they oppose their viewpoints.
In watching their faculty engage in such conduct, one can understand why students believe that they have license to prevent others from speaking on campus. The only way to change that view is to suspend, fire, or expel those who seek to prevent others hearing opposing views by disrupting events. Again, the universities must show equal commitment in protecting their right to protest outside of events. Yet, disrupting a class or event from within these spaces is a denial of the essential commitment of higher education to the free exchange of ideas.
How an illegal is hired to work? That is against the law, so how Cornell hired her?
Chieftan
There ARE a slew of federal laws already on the books regarding employing and assisting illegal immigrants. We the People just need to demand they be enforced.
Maybe the government ought to ban funding universities that hire illegal aliens?
WTF is interpersonal communication? Teaching folk how to use a cell phone? DEI is neoracism. https://torrancestephensphd.substack.com/p/neo-racism-in-the-twenty-first-century
Ain’t global communism great?
A tenure track illegal alien. Cornell should be prosecuted.
Speaking of “trans” people (Prof. Rodriguez) the Supreme Court has already declared they are “imbeciles.” Who’s sterilization is a good thing because too many “generations of imbeciles is enough.”
https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article-abstract/65/1/137/805220
Buck v. Bell. Says those exact words. And while Skinner v. Oklahoma put a little “consent” speed bump, that’s no barrier to Madison Avenue advertising campaigns created by Mad Men to manufacture the consent of “imbeciles” to be sterilized. Just like it manufactures consent to purchase a new car, new phone, beer or cosmetics.
“Gender-affirming” surgery/care is just like “Corinthian leather.” A marketing linguistic device employed to sell an idea of prestige:
https://www.leatherjacketmaster.com/blogs/journal/corinthian-leather
This is how Skinner v. Oklahoma is bypassed in order to allow Buck v. Bell’s sterilization of imbeciles eugenics to remain the law of the land. The Supreme Court is okay with “trans” “imbeciles” ending their own genes from polluting the collective gene pool of our nation.
Note: This isn’t my belief. I’m not a eugenicist. I share to enlighten readers, maybe even Turley himself, what the whole manufactured “trans” movement is really about. And it is evil.
What gets me is when they bring kids into it. Kids should not be legally capable of consenting to sterilization. It should be reserved for adults who consent, don’t you think? Scotus has said kids’ brains aren’t even fully mature for decision making till like 26. Certainly below 18 they’re not which is the whole justification for their recent 8A jurisprudence. But a minor can legally consent to sterilization? WTF?
Are adults even really consenting? What is consent? Can consent be coerced? Is consent that is manufactured by sophisticated tools of indoctrination and propaganda just like Joseph Goebbels deployed on adult Germans to gain their consent to sterilization and euthanasia truly consent?
Therein is the biggest challenge we face. And what rests inside the Missouri v. Biden censorship case before SCOTUS. Did the social media and other media companies truly consent to censor counter-narratives the government and corporations like Pfizer didn’t want given an audience? Or was their consent coerced, under duress, manufactured by Goebbels-style propaganda campaigns?
While minor consent is especially concerning, what about an entire nation’s consent? Can consent to totalitarianism be manufacutured under the US Constitution that repeals the entire Bill of Rights without amendment? I’m sure Prof. Turley has some thoughts on this. If only he read and responded to his articles on this platform we’d get to hear them.
Bravo to Provost Kotlikoff for being Courageous, Principled & Professional enough to take the first step, miles longer than a lot of educators… From Prof. Turley’s column the big Take-away Question is HOW do ‘we’ recover at least the basic framework of the ‘Real America’ in the wake of all this uncivil disobedience & disregard? When I joined college day protests, they were 99% civil & respectful and on most occasions after a bit of peaceful placard holding on the sidewalk, most of us assimilated into the audience inside the auditorium as we really did want to hear what the ‘opposition’ had to say.. quietly, respectfully & with open ears…
Cornell has a freedom of expression theme year this year. Who know?
https://events.cornell.edu/freedom-of-expression
100% positive that hiring an “undocumented alien” to be a college professor is against federal and state law.
Therefore every employee of your university is a criminal threat to me. I will treat each and every one of you people with brutality
Maybe they would also elaborate on what exactly is taught in interpersonal communication that one can get a PhD in.
“I am a faculty member” is reason enough to whack her with a billy club. Every time she says it, whack her again; let’s see how many times it takes her to realize she should stop saying it… i.e. I’ll bet she’s dumber than a dog and just keeps repeating her behavior.
IMMIGRATION LAW OF THE AMERICAN FOUNDERS WITHIN THE YEAR OF THE ADOPTION OF THE CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, 1802 (four iterations for clarity)
United States Congress, “An act to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization,” March 26, 1790
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That any Alien being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof…
“Do Not Touch Me…I am a Faculty Member”
“I’m perfectly legal and I’m a teacher, so there.”
She calls him a “Mexican” as an insult. Then she calls him a racist. Clearly not dealing with a sane person.
Aren’t universities ready to get this albatross off from around their necks?
Isn’t this woke anchor heavy now?
America will get this albatross off its neck when actual Americans TAKE this albatross off America’s neck and neutralize it with extreme prejudice.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Amen brother.
Im not gonna lie. The moment I went to the link of Monica Cornejo, and saw her photo, it was what I have imagined Gigi looks like
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Take a look at Gigi
https://cornellsun.com/2023/04/24/prof-monica-cornejo-shares-experiences-as-an-undocumented-immigrant-in-academia/
“Little Miss Affirmative Action”
It was such a good idea for America to tyrannically and forcibly impose the principles of communism.
Thanks, Abe.
NUTCHACHACHA indeed.
Oh, hell, now I can’t un-see it.
I had an uncle who flew missions over Ploesti in WWII and later became a history professor at Cornell. I wonder what he would think about all of this.
I read the book – absolutely awesome!