Cornell University officials are hoping that student
residential-housing outreach programs being launched this school year
will help the upstate New York institution avoid the problems it
experienced last spring when a conservative student publication
offended many university students with an Ebonics parody.
Cornell officials say the outreach programs are expected to
increase interaction and multicultural understanding among students at
the Ivy League university. Although just 45 percent of the entire
undergraduate student body lives in campus housing, the outreach
initiatives are intended to reach all undergraduates, according to
Susan Murphy, Cornell’s vice-president for student and academic
services.
“Residential programs are one part of the way you reach students,”
said Murphy. “There’s always hope that you can use outreach programs to
help prevent the type of incidents that happened last spring.”
Last spring’s controversy, which roiled the campus, began with an
article published in the April 17, 1997, edition of The Cornell Review,
a publication that touts itself as the “conservative voice at Cornell”.
The article — titled “So, You Be Wantin’ To Take Dis Class?”, a piece
editors described as a spoof of Ebonics-offered an Ebonics translation
of course offerings at Cornell’s Africana Studies and Research Center.
Students angered by the article held a demonstration eleven days
later on the Cornell campus to denounce the publication’s editors for
what was considered a racist attack on African American studies and
culture. Protesting students disrupted traffic on public streets and
burned several copies of The Cornell Review to symbolize their
disapproval of the offensive article. They also demanded that
university administrators end funding of the publication and mandate
racial sensitivity training for Cornell students.
The article’s publication and the subsequent protest by angry
students drew strong response from Cornell President Hunter Rawlings.
“Several articles in The Cornell Review, divisive in their intent,
have hurt the spirits of many on campus. Race-baiting, stereotyping,
and intentionally degrading attacks on Cornell’s African American
community have no place in our campus discourse,” Rawlings said.
