When the University lined the bridges around campus with chain-link fences in March, it immediately provoked a torrent of responses. Some members of the community praised the move as the appropriate response to three gorge-related suicides this spring. Others protested, arguing that the fences were unattractive and ineffective structures that promoted a prison-like atmosphere and served as a constant reminder of tragedy.

This debate that has ensued on campus this semester — and continues as University administrators this week mull the future of the suicide barriers — is not the first time Cornell is wrestling with these issues. Nearly identical debates over suicide barriers played out on campus during the 1970s and 1980s.

In 1977, Cornell’s campus experienced three student deaths by suicide in the gorges and three other suicides in the same year. Two years later, the University proposed the installation of six-and-a-half-foot metal bars along the Collegetown bridge above Cascadilla gorge.

The proposal immediately elicited strong reactions from students, who made arguments similar to those that have been expressed this past semester.

“Cornell has not made a more arrogant decision yet this year,” asserted The Sun’s editorial at the time. “Cornell has deemed it appropriate to prescribe hideous metal bars as a death-defying medicine … Students’ freedom to run their lives as adults will be mocked as they stare through the prison-likebuilding is a “strategic investment” for the University, according to DeStefano.