It is difficult to believe that just over a year ago, Cornell University declared the 2023-2024’s official theme as “Freedom of Expression.” The irony of that is suffocating. By January 2024, as pro-Palestinian protests surged, Cornell rolled out its Interim Expressive Activity Policy, a tangle of regulations demanding permits, registration and administrative approval before students could gather. Protests were confined to narrow zones, reduced in volume and treated as risks. The university claimed this was for safety, but many students felt like this was a grasp at control.
When students refused to be cowed, the punishments began. Four students were banned from setting foot on the campus for three years. Momodou Taal, a vocal pro-Palestinian activist, was suspended, while others received no trespass orders. Their crime was not violence — it was dissent. The administration disrupted lives, delayed degrees and fractured communities because students dared to stand on the Arts Quad and speak their convictions. The lesson was unmistakable: Protest and you risk your future here. The cost of expression was no longer symbolic — it was real.
What's happening at Cornell is not unique. It's part of a pattern that's now playing out nationwide. In the hours after Charlie Kirk's assassination, a narrative took hold before investigators even named a suspect, let alone established a motive. President Trump blamed the “radical left” for political violence. Vice President J.D. Vance, speaking on Kirk's own podcast from the White House, promised to “identify, disrupt, eliminate, and destroy” far-left networks. Senior Adviser Stephan Miller vowed to unleash the full power of the Department of Justice and Homeland Security against what he branded a “domestic terror movement.” Other officials went further, pointing to unrelated incidents — Tesla burnings, clashes with immigration officers —as supposed evidence of this movement. This is a strategy to redefine dissent as danger, then trying to justify sweeping punishment under the guise of security.
Cornell is already under federal scrutiny, with billions of dollars in funding being withheld. But now the danger is rising. The State Department has warned that any foreign nationals with pending visas or citizenship applications would be denied if they are found to “make light” of Kirk’s death. The consequences are already visible: more than thirty people have been fired for posts about the assasination, from Nasdaq employees to Clemson professors to a Washington Post columnist. If someone decides that your words sound dismissive, if you don't express grief in the exact right way, then you could be branded as a suspect, a villain or a terrorist. This is a witch hunt dressed up as policy, with no legal precedent, because “make light” is entirely subjective. For domestic students, the cost could be losing a job or never being hired. For international students, it could mean deportation.
Let's be clear: Charlie Kirk's assassination was tragic. No one should die that way. Violence should never be the price of politics. But tragedy cannot become an excuse for tyranny. The government does not get to police our emotions. It does not get to decide which words are acceptable, which thoughts are legal, which citizens are worthy. To claim that criticizing Kirk makes you an extremist is to erase the very purpose of free speech.
This is not a partisan issue. Republicans and Democrats alike should see the danger in this. Today, this crackdown targets the left. Tomorrow it can target the right. Once the state has the power to criminalize dissent, to weaponize visas, to police thought, nobody will be safe. Every student, every citizen should understand: If the Government can silence them, it can silence you.
Our freedom is being bartered away for the illusion of security. Order is enforced not to keep us safe, but to impose a singular narrative. This is how authoritarian takeovers have always worked: from McCarthyism branding dissent as treason, to Nazi Germany demanding loyalty oaths, to the Soviet Union punishing what it deemed as anti-state speech. Each regime justified repression as safety. And this is where we must draw the line. You can grieve Kirk's death, condemn political violence and still demand the right to speak. In fact, that is what democracy requires. If we cannot question, criticize or dissent without being labeled dangerous, then the promise of America is already broken.
We have already lost a great deal of our ability to protest and speak freely. If we accept that security requires silence, we will lose so much more. Get a grip: This is not safety — it is suppression. And we are all at risk.
Pilar Seielstad ’26 is an Opinion Columnist and a Biological Sciences student in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her column A Pilar of Thought offers a fresh lens on the overlooked corners of our campus. In her fortnightly column, she delves into situations often unseen or unacknowledged, bringing them into the light with a focus on facts and thoughtful analysis. Expect pieces that serve as food for thought, aiming to spark real conversation and offer new perspectives on the everyday. She can be reached at pseielstad@cornellsun.com.
