HARNEY | Objection!

See Objection, Legal Info. Inst., https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/objection (last visited Sept. 30, 2025) (“An objection is a formal protest … asserting that an error … has been or will be made. The purpose of an objection is to provide … an opportunity … to cure the defect at a time when error may be readily corrected.”) 

Here at Cornell, I’m a law student in my third and final year. I spent my first summer as an intern in New Orleans, where I helped the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center provide both trial-level defense and post-conviction representation for people facing the death penalty. I spent my second summer in my hometown of New York, working at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Appeals Bureau. There, I assisted people who had been convicted after trial, or, 97 percent of the time, pled guilty to a lesser offense. I would draft motions to lower their sentences as excessive so they could see their daughters a year earlier; to exclude their confessions from evidence as involuntary when detectives told them their Miranda rights were just a formality; to argue they still had a right to be heard, even after signing their rights away as a condition of their plea deal. (A ubiquitous practice amongst New York prosecutors.) 

My Column, “Objection!” focuses on American political news through a critical legal lens. This is a moment of upheaval in the United States. Between the left and right, there are frightening levels of fundamental disagreement. If Americans can agree on anything, it appears to be that something must change. To so many people in by far the wealthiest nation on earth, the status quo seems untenable. Unlike other countries, we are quite unthreatened by foreign forces. So, leaving aside for now the Russian and Chinese social media bots,  we will rise or fall to this moment’s challenge by our own hands alone. 

My heart breaks for the younger generation. For some of them, this must seem normal: The denial of election results, the open and notorious weaponization of the Department of Justice against political opponents, the summary deportations without due process, the authoritarian crackdown on dissenting speech, including op-eds critical of foreign countries and, perhaps worst of all, the ongoing and sickening deployment of U.S. troops against their own countrymen. If I tried listing them all, I would run over the word count. The President has not stopped telling us he will run for a third term, unconstitutionally. Of course, MAGA will stop telling us he’s joking about that the day he actually runs: Maybe they’ll tell us that he who saves his country does not violate any law. Or perhaps by then they’ll simply tell us, and the courts that are left, to fuck off. 

“Constitutional crisis,” which in halcyon days seemed melodramatic, is now an understatement. We are, as I write these very words, living under a soft authoritarian regime, fairly comparable to Hungary. What proud American is willing to be so subjugated? Is it less painful to ignore the truth than to resist? History tells us it will not be for long. 

President Donald Trump and his cronies spit on the Constitution and put Stephen Miller on the TV to tell you they’re shining it. What an insult to our intelligence. What an insult to those countless Americans who fought, and were willing to die, to secure us those very same rights. And speaking of Stephen Miller, how many murders has he gotten to authorize lately? I know Trump said he was going to run the government like a business. It turns out letting your creepy underling carry out drone strikes on Venezuelans is what’s called in the world of business a “non-monetary incentive.” Anyone? I’m just auditioning for a late-night talk show while they still exist. All this to say: The frontal assault on our way of life isn’t just menacing, it’s also absurd, buffoonish and ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. 

Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re dramatic or pretentious for insisting on vindicating Constitutional norms and values: They are bad faith actors, preying on cultural inertia to prevent a proactive response to their dismantling of our democracy, or alternatively, they are fools. 

As a law student at a wonderful establishment like Cornell, I’m privileged to grapple with the concept of right and wrong every day. And I’m no longer conflicted: What is being done to our country is wrong. That being so, how could I not take advantage of the very privileges this country has given me to stand up for it? The only path forward involves the freedom to be critical of the government. It involves a wholesale rejection by Americans of authoritarianism and repression, including the usage of federal troops in a law enforcement capacity, absent the consent of the State or a court order. And it includes an independent, both in law and in fact, Department of Justice. These are not partisan issues. They cannot be. 

I would much rather not have to make all these points. I prefer baking bread, hanging out with my orange cat and learning about the law. But this is too important. Our institutions, and the rule of law they sustain, are, technically speaking, our birthright. But they are, in all practicality, our responsibility. America doesn’t just happen to have these institutions because it is great; it is only great because it has these institutions, painstakingly fought for and won. We must safeguard them, maintain them and defend them. Every one of us shares this duty, as close to sacred as any.  

If we do not change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re heading. Somewhere much worse than Hungary. So consider this my formal protest. Consider this my objection: that moment in trial where one must react with confidence, with decisive practicality.  Even if their knees feel weak. Even if they’re not sure what words their mouth will form. Even if victory is not yet assured. And consider this another opportunity in our history, as Americans, to tend to our political culture at a time when our errors may still be readily corrected. 

The Cornell Daily Sun is interested in publishing a broad and diverse set of content from the Cornell and greater Ithaca community. We want to hear what you have to say about this topic or any of our pieces. Here are some guidelines on how to submit. And here’s our email: associate-editor@cornellsun.com.

---