Cornell Professor Randy O. Wayne has filed a criminal complaint against Monica Cornejo, an assistant professor of interpersonal communication, for her disruption of the recent speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter. As we discussed, Cornell Provost Michael Kotlikoff extended the invitation after an earlier event was interrupted by protesters and declared that the university would not allow the exercise of free speech to be blocked by activists. In defiance of that policy, Cornejo proceeded to interrupt the event with heckling and profanities.
In an email, Professor Wayne confirmed that on Wednesday April 17, the day after the event, he filed a criminal complaint with the Cornell University Police. The listed offense was disorderly conduct.
While this was filed with the university police, the state definition of disorderly conduct under § 240.20 states:
A person is guilty of disorderly conduct when, with intent to cause
public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk
thereof:1. He engages in fighting or in violent, tumultuous or threatening
behavior; or2. He makes unreasonable noise; or
3. In a public place, he uses abusive or obscene language, or makes an
obscene gesture; or4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or
meeting of persons; or5. He obstructs vehicular or pedestrian traffic; or
6. He congregates with other persons in a public place and refuses to
comply with a lawful order of the police to disperse; or7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act
which serves no legitimate purpose.Disorderly conduct is a violation.
Cornejo is accused of repeatedly interrupting and making an obscene gesture at the event before being forced to leave. It is not clear if the university also filed a complaint, but none was listed. Indeed, at the time of this posting, Wayne’s complaint was not listed on the university police website.
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.”
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).
Putting the criminal charges aside, the question is what Cornell will do about a faculty member who openly defied the free speech policies of the university and sought to prevent others from hearing opposing views. As I discussed in the earlier column, she is just the latest faculty member to engage in such anti-free speech conduct on campuses. Why should students heed the warnings of Cornell when their own faculty show contempt for these protections?
Randy Wayne had a critical role in arranging the visit by Coulter. We have also previously discussed his challenging of universities policies and actions in the past.
A free speech panel is scheduled to be a held on campus on April 23.
Maybe the June release of Indispensable Right speaks to this. Could cleaning up Dodge City at universities use some procedure? Something like Robert’s Rules of Order where the speaker gets to speak without interruption, and replies are made after that? Coupled with “if you bust that rule you expose yourself to placekicked off the campus? Faculty and students?
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
– Barack Obama, Son of a Foreign Citizen
______________________________________________
“[Obama] wants to know everything we’re doing.”
– Lisa Page to FBI paramour Peter Strzok
____________________________________________
Letter
To George Washington from John Jay, 25 July 1787
From John Jay
New York 25 July 1787
Dear Sir
Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise & seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government, and to declare expressly that the Command in chief of the american army shall not be given to, nor devolved on, any but a natural born Citizen.
John Jay
Barack Hussein “Barry ‘I-Have-A-Statue-In-Jakarta’ Soetoro” Obama will never be eligible for the office of president.
Barack Hussein “Barry ‘I-Have-A-Statue-In-Jakarta’ Soetoro” Obama will never be a “natural born citizen.”
Barack Hussein “Barry ‘I-Have-A-Statue-In-Jakarta’ Soetoro” Obama has no valid, licit, or constitutional basis to engage in “fundamentally transforming” the United States of America.
Barack Hussein “Barry ‘I-Have-A-Statue-In-Jakarta’ Soetoro” Obama is a direct and mortal enemy of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
I hope this opens up a can of worms. Further investigation of her is indicated.
I went on a date with a female that reminds me of Professor Cornejo.
Took her to a high end restaurant. She hated the menu and began complaining. I went to the bathroom. But when I returned, she started complaining about a couple with two boys seated way back in an L shaped venue. I had to get up and look all the way down where she saw them.
Then the waiter came with the bill while I’m still eating. She said “You Said You Would Pay”.
Congratulations to Prof. Wayne and to Provost Kotlikoff for having the courage to defend free speech and to defend a fundamental purpose of education, that is, to facilitate and encourage the free discussion of ideas – all ideas.
J. O’Brien Jr.
Absolutely Kudos to Prof. Wayne, but Provost Kotlikoff went out of his way to say he disagrees with Coulter and agrees with the illegal immigrant protester.
Finally! A professor with guts to go against the mob known as the faculty.
There are no words for these people, and if she is here illegally and serving on faculty – this is literally the only country on earth where this could happen, and only under this (or the proxy Obama) administration. It is disgusting, not a single other country in the western world is doing this crap, and they don’t have 1A or 2A – they just aren’t as irretrievably stupid as us, given they are fairly small countries, as the Obama cabal. Stop. Voting. For. This. Period.
If you vote blue you are voting for it in 2024. Even the Professor, WAKE UP, who seems to be stuck in 1962. You are. You. you, you, you. You are adults with the critical thinking and acuity of teenagers. Wholeheartedly, spare us your complaints. Get your dang head out of the sand and wake up before it’s too late for everyone, because we are getting close to that point, and after we cross a particular threshold it’s going to be something nobody wants. Stop it in its tracks NOW.
Ugh. And once again in haste at work I plugged in the wrong credentials. Rest assured, this was my heartfelt comment, forgive me.
I think it’s possible that she came here as “undocumented” (as an American resident) but is now a green card holder as an employee of the university.
I also would rather not see this happen, but she wouldn’t be the first “undocumented migrant” to find a way to stay in the US. A dear friend of mine was in this boat – a DACA child at a very young age, who has now married – definitely for love – an American citizen and had a child within that marriage.
A properly run institution should have security oversee her putting her personal effects in cardboard boxes, then collect any keys she has before escorting her off campus and handing her a notice informing her she would be arrested for trespassing if she ever comes back
The irony is her area of expertise is interpersonal communication. If I didn’t know better I would think this was an old Saturday Night Live skit. I hope parents of aspiring Cornell students are paying attention.
“one of the first undocumented tenure-track faculty members at Cornell.”
If this person was vetted properly she’d still be waiting in Mexico for her hearing. Why is an undocumented individual being considered for tenure while U.S. citizens can easily hold the position?
I think Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR, can help explain Cornejo’s position and help defend her! This is rich, and hilarious:
That’s what you would get if you crossed The Babylon Bee with TED Talk. Damn!
I did not realize what a nutbar Maher was until I watched this. Gee, she is a 4+ kook!
We, the taxpayers, are paying for this garbage.
Affluent White Female Liberal–AWFL.
Gutfeld’s right about that.
This entity is the very personification of incoherence and hysteria.
This entity is the modern iteration of the stupefied, befuddled, pathological, debilitated inebriate, Karl Marx (i.e. who “was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, committing a press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting,…the king, Frederick William IV…implemented counterrevolutionary measures to expunge left-wing and other revolutionary elements from the country…and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 May…Marx returned to Paris…and was soon expelled by the city authorities, who considered him a political threat…in August 1849 he sought refuge in London).
Rather than freedom and self-reliance, rather than the definitive brilliance of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, this entity’s tool of the elite “intellectuals” and the Illuminati, the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” shall preside over the people and hold insuperable dominion.
What a ——- wackjob!
Oh, and Welfare Queen!
At a self reverential stage of my life as a quixotic, college aged, supposedly, Worldly champion of mankind, I would listen to NPR and get this bizarre, hypnotic, bordering on euphoric, fuzzy felling all over my being. Like cocaine for the soul! WtF was that?!
4+4=5; “Now, sign Ze papers, old man!”
– Cheech & Chong Inc.
Will, I’m not surprised. As Senator Elizabeth Warren aka Pocahontas stated, “Nasty Women Vote”. That would be Assistant Professor Monica Cornejo.
Well that is a change in the usual silence that follows these events. I would suggest that instead she should have been taken to the Provost’s office and paddled like a 2nd grader and then the video of the paddling sent to all students and faculty of the university. Also a video of her offense as it occurred. We want both sides after all.
I keep thinking Beavis, and his sugar rush, when I read her name. I am the Great Cornholio, and I need TP to shut-you-uppio!
You gotta stiffle free speech in order to protect free speech, look at yourself, would you please?
Her arrest for the disruption of the event is not a stifling
of her free speech rights.
Well, she’s an assistant professor, which means she doesn’t have tenure yet. And it’s very likely she never will. Interrupting and making obscene gestures calls into question her character, not just her politics. What on earth were the faculty and administration thinking when they hired her in the first place? This is a living example of the abysmal failure of the DEI project. Unless our universities want to fall into terminal irrelevance, they had better start looking at merit-based hires instead of falling into the identity politics trap.
What on earth were the faculty and administration thinking when they hired her in the first place?
Probably that she checked a lot of DEI boxes – including the “illegal alien” box, which apparently they consider a good thing.
Isn’t someone who is described as “undocumented” in this country illegally? Should this not also be addressed? southern farmer
I have been saying for the past 2 years that the fightback has started especially in Florida, see Columbia today clearing and arresting protestors on campus. I am sure ICE will pick up this illegal and send her packing. There is supposed to be a Federal law E Verify which Cornell should use when hiring!
Actually, I doubt this illegal is going anywhere. ICE isn’t allowed to do anything. That agency has been neutered by the current White House. The correct thing to do is to send her back to her home country.
So disorderly conduct includes:
4. Without lawful authority, he disturbs any lawful assembly or meeting of persons; or . . .
7. He creates a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.
Wouldn’t shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater (when there is no fire) fall into one of these two categories? I ask because a few days ago John Say told me I was wrong in two ways: (1) shouting fire is not disorderly conduct, and (2) in any event it is protected speech under 1A so no disorderly-conduct prosecution could succeed. I asked him to provide an example of a court disallowing such a prosecution under 1A, but he did not provide any such authority. And as for whether it falls into the definition of disorderly conduct, he said that *usually* disorderly conduct involves more than one utterance.
I agree that “usually” it does, but that doesn’t mean it *always* does. Shouting fire seems like the prototypical example of when it doesn’t. And I’m still waiting on that authority. So . . . what do you say, John Say?
oldmanfromkansas – Your post raises some good questions which I will try to answer from my perspective and within my knowledge and abilities as a non-lawyer: first, the prohibitions you note are Cornell’s, not the US Constitution’s. Second: the 1st Amendment prohibits the federal government, not the People, from limiting speech. To wit, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” It’s in this fashion that fraudulently shouting, “Theater!” in a crowded firehouse is constitutional, my dislike of theater notwithstanding. The rub, however, is that the shouter may run afoul of other state and federal laws that deal with slander or other fraudulent spoken utterances, or with issues that deal with public safety.
In the long run, many (all?) court decisions that are determined by a jury (or en banc) are merely interpretations. Judges, too, are subject to judicial agendas, whims and personal opinions – to list just a few of the areas in which the law may be mis- or mal-interpreted (it’s one of the reasons I dislike the perfunctory “Honorable” appellation or the forced standing/seating when a judge enters a courtroom; judges should be humble, not aggrandized).
Do we think it’s possible to enumerate every human permutation to the law and its judicial or legislative solution? As such, it’s my opinion that the law cannot and should not be subject to the interpretation of a single judge or jury’s interpretation – a cursory examination of “decisions decided badly” should be enough to convince the interested reader. That is to say, the underlying law should be written by the legislatures such that no ambiguousness is present. If that’s not possible, the law should not be codified into statute. It’s another reason we should, IMHO, make all legislation subject to a 19- or 20-year generational sunset-provision – as Jefferson suggested – but it’s not a cure-all. To my legislators, I’ve suggested that legislation should require the federal or state constitutional text that undergirds it but my life-experience is that law is often emotionally reactionary and after-the fact rather than rationally deliberative.
My POV is informed from among many other opinions but Bastiat’s “The Law” rates highly with me.
Do the time and wear the conviction forever on your CV with pride, Monica Cornejo! Maybe your name will become synonymous with that of Henry David Thoreau when one contemplates civil disobedience. But then again, maybe not….
Just curious on procedure: wouldn’t the charges be filed with the Ithaca Police Department, to be prosecuted by the Tompkins County DA? Or would they be filed with the Cornell Police? I’m thinking you should check with the Ithaca police to be certain.
“Cornahole”has got to go!