The school told the College Republicans that the quad was already being used for an unrelated event.
On Sunday, the College Republicans at Cornell University held their annual 9/11 memorial with an attached fundraiser for the local Veterans of Foreign Wars chapter in Ithaca, N.Y.
With the help of Young America’s Foundation, the College Republicans planted 2,977 flags in the ground in the heart of campus, the school’s Arts and Sciences Quad, as is their tradition.
But this year, they did so against the explicit orders of the university’s administration, which had denied the organization’s request to use a small sliver of the Quad for their display because, allegedly, the university’s Clubfest would be taking up the entirety of the massive outdoor space.
“The quad is fully booked already for an event… In checking with them, they do believe they need the whole quad,” wrote an administrator in an email to the CRs, before suggesting an alternative location with no grass to put the flags.
After reviewing a map of Clubfest and surveying the Quad on the morning of September 11, though, the College Republicans determined that there was plenty of space for their memorial.
“They were only using like half of the Quad for Clubfest. So it was totally unreasonable for them to be like, ‘there’s no space open for you guys,'” one member of the College Republicans’ executive board told National Review.
And so the College Republicans planted their flags in one of the many open spaces on the Quad early on Sunday in contravention of the university’s instructions, while remaining out of the way of the rest of the campus’s organization’s tables and displays.
The group was pleased to have been able to memorialize the events of September 11, 2001, in an area of campus that attracted plenty of foot traffic. After all, theirs was the only effort by anyone on campus — including the administration — to honor the victims of 9/11.
But members of the organization were frustrated when the university, after having taken no action to memorialize the day and in fact, after having impeded the group’s own attempt to do so, posted a picture of the display on Instagram, pretending that the university itself had put it up.
“Today and everyday, we remember the lives lost — including 21 Cornell alumni — 21 years ago on September 11, 2001. #NeverForget,” Cornell’s student and campus life account captioned the picture, making no reference to the College Republicans.
Avery Bower, the president of the Cornell College Republicans, said in an interview with National Review that it “feels like a slap in the face” for the university to “co-opt” an effort at remembrance “without actually doing anything to memorialize” the victims.
The university’s lack of programming and failure to send out so much as an email to students stands in stark contrast to its handling of other world events.
When the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was released in June, for example, it prompted a same-day email from Dr. Augustine Choi, the dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, to the entirety of the Cornell community explaining that “as an academic medical institution, Weill Cornell Medicine is committed to providing the most compassionate, highest quality of care to all our patients.” and calling the legal decision “deeply disappointing.”
“I believe it potentially undercuts the ability of doctors to provide that high quality of care needed by women,” wrote Choi.
Similarly, last April, university president Martha Pollack sent an email out in the wake of the Derek Chauvin murder trial verdict, boasting that the administration had “planned a series of community gatherings for today and extending throughout the week to help each other process and reflect on today’s verdict.”
“I don’t really like the idea of the university commenting on high-profile political events,” said Bower about Cornell’s practices. “If the university is going to take a stance on issues like abortion in the wake of Dobbs, the least they could have done is comment on the anniversary of a national tragedy.”
Close to a third of undergraduates at Cornell hail from New York State, and a high percentage of that group is native to the New York City area.
Cornell University did not respond to a request for comment.