Living in Collegetown, my commute to class consists of a pretty standard route up Ho Plaza that takes me right by Anabel Taylor Hall. Home of the much contested and loved Anabel’s Grocery, it is also home to a slightly lesser known and utilized office: the Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making. My first time ever visiting Cornell was the summer after my junior year of high school, and this office stood out to me as perhaps the most significant place at Cornell. Now, starting my senior year, I have never actually sought guidance from the mysterious makers of meaning. I picture them to be in the basement of the building, with a crystal ball and the answers to all my problems. In reality, I know that they are people tied to the religious organizations of Cornell, and probably just adhere to paperwork in a ritual way that seems to be standard for any Cornell administrator.
But as I look back on my time here, I find myself creating my own space for meaning, a crystal ball right here, on this page.
While I can’t speak on behalf of the University, I can do everything in my power to disagree with it. It is apparent to me that Cornell should not let the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement use students, or our recruitment platforms, as a means to an end that involves the downfall of our University as we know it, not to mention our country.
The move to let ICE target Cornell students via the popular recruitment website Handshake, and their own Career Services website implies an agreement between Cornell and the current government that seems to go against the University’s own motto of “any Person, any Study,” where “any person” could certainly be an immigrant. It also implies a certain level of expression in a right-leaning direction that undermines President Kotlikoff’s statement at the University’s reunion this past summer: “My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” This move certainly feels like it went past the nose, straight to the gut.
Now that President Kotlikoff is officially the University's 15th president, it is time, more so now than ever before, to consider how the University’s non-action affects his students. While it is possible that some members of the student body may fit some of the current unspoken requirements to join ICE., it does not mean that Cornell ought not have an active role to play in the protection of its students first and foremost.
While the Department of Justice has tried to remove Ithaca's apparatus of immigrant protection, a quiet move that has continued to erode local safeguards in silence, it does not change the fact that Cornell owes a debt of safety to its students the moment they accept an offer of attendance.
This safety and protection should come from the Student Code of Conduct and the Title IX office as well as reinforced by state law. Faculty and staff are owed a legal debt that is granted to them by the State of New York, which states that no discrimination will be tolerated regardless of immigration status. Surely these measures are enough to indicate that it is well within the University's powers to prevent the use of its own platforms to promote the harmful behavior that ICE has perpetrated across the country for the better part of a year now.
Going by the current administration’s moves to use ICE in the detention of students, such as Mohsen Mahdawi of Columbia University and Rumeysa Ozturk of Tufts University, will Cornell be next on the list?. The University’s want for its own students to add to the barbaric practices that have been implemented across the nation is not only a complete disregard for our safety and wellbeing — it is embarrassing. For an estimated $96,000 dollars a year, I expect my peers to be, at a minimum, protected.
Let us call on Cornell to stop creating situations that its students have to get themselves out of time and time again. It is time for collaboration, not corroboration.
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Nina Davis '26 is an opinion columnist in the College of Arts & Sciences. She served in the 142nd Editorial Board as photography editor. Her column Making Meaning is interested in asking questions that do not have easy answers. She can be reached at ndavis@cornellsun.com.
