I don’t speak out on politics, or controversial issues in general, much less write about them in my column. I usually stick to ranking bathrooms, discussing cute animals on campus and judging ice cream competitions.
But I had some observations about the aftermath of the election. As a government major, there was serious build-up in my classes to this election, as well as a significant analysis afterwards. The degree of partisanship here not just in the government department, but also other humanities departments, is significant but not surprising.
I’m no Trump fan, and know that most of my classmates aren’t either, but I think the level of partisan behavior in Cornell classrooms is inappropriate. And it shouldn’t matter if you’re a Trump fan or not. Everyone should be able to agree that polarization is bad.
I don’t care what the professors or TAs think — what matters is that we as students shouldn’t know, or it shouldn’t be this obvious (Unless of course, they’re doing specific research or teaching a course on a certain topic. But that’s usually not the case). For example, I don’t think anyone should’ve gotten an onslaught of emails the morning after the election from professors bemoaning the results like I and many other Cornell students did. I also think it’s deeply inappropriate that there are professors here who cannot hide their disdain of other viewpoints and react in anger if challenged in even the most indirect of ways. It builds a well-understood fear of retaliation in the gradebook that students feel they are completely at the mercy of.........