After last week’s campus cry-in to lament Donald Trump’s electoral victory, one alumna is fed up with Cornell University students’ behavior.
Last week, about 20 students participated in the cry-in by writing their feelings about the election results on poster board and coloring with sidewalk chalk in the campus quad, according to The College Fix.
Megan Tubb, who graduated from Cornell in 2013, penned a letter to the editor of The Cornell Daily Sun criticizing their reaction to the election results.
“The day after the election, you responded by literally sitting on the ground and crying,” Tubb wrote. “What is worse is that student funds were used to provide said students with hot chocolate and coloring supplies. This is not what adulthood looks like.”
Tubb, who said she voted for Trump, wrote that she is saddened by how out-of-touch Cornell students are from a majority of the American electorate and said their reaction shows a lack of diversity in opinion on campus.
This University’s commitment to diversity is one of its most unique and beautiful characteristics but it is unnerving that, in a country in which half of the voter block chose Donald Trump, it appears that Cornell students have never had a meaningful conversation with one of those voters. Is it fair to characterize Cornell as a community committed to celebrating ‘differences of opinions’ when students who voted for a certain candidate are afraid to express support? What about their ’emotional well-being’?
Protest, petition, get involved, let your voices be heard, but do it the right way. We are so fortunate to live in the freest country the world has ever known. Don’t throw away your shot! A robust policy debate creates a civil and liberal society in which anyone can find a place so long as the conversations we have are truly inclusive and open minded. It is easier to coerce than to convince but cutting corners is no way to govern or be governed.
You can read the entire letter here.
