For those not familair with my Redbud Woods story, please see my earlier diary at:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/13/2046/77631
Today I had a conversation with Susan Murphy, a Cornell University Vice President about the students' safety. Students are on tree platforms and in lock boxes with their arms inside pipes cemented into the ground. I asked her for an assurance that " pain compliance or violence" (and I explicitly used those four words) would not be used against these non-violent students. She said she could not give that guarantee if they resisted arrest. I then asked her, in quick succession, this same question again four times, and all four times, her answer was the same. In the end I said, "Then I can take it that you would condone the use of pain compliance and violence against students." Her answer was, "If they resist arrest, yes."
This is what we have come to: The administration is willing to use methods of torture (let's call it what it is) to build a parking lot -- and that lot is being built over the vociferous opposition of students, faculty, staff, the county and city governance bodies and Historic Ithaca. Use of pain compliance, which has been ruled in some courts as tantamount to torture, by our university for a parking lot.
Use of pain compliance, which has been ruled in some courts as tantamount to torture, by our university for a parking lot.
This is not only the legacy of Hunter Rawlings, but the sad fact of what the university has sunk to.
I have called every representative I can to highlight what I consider now to be a potential human rights issue.
Just as the woods are small, it could be argued that a little torture is okay. You know, a little pavement here, a little torture there.
When does it stop? How will these people sleep tonight?
If there are bluffing, shame on them. If they are not, Cornell University's administration has disgraced the good name of our university.
UPDATE: I spoke with Lt. Zoner, a female officer in the Cornell police force this morning. She reassured me, rather convincingly, that she will not order any of her very well trained officers to use any force at all on a passive or non-violent person. Her conversation was actually very reassuring.