Ignoring Cornell’s COVID Critics is Unforgivable

To the Editor:

In the article “Three Years Since COVID-19 Lockdown, Cornellians Reflect on Pandemic,” authors Aimée Eicher and Sofia Rubinson interviewed several students and a professor regarding their COVID-19 experience at Cornell. The Cornellians they selected had nothing but fawning praise for Cornell’s pandemic policies, and Eicher and Rubinson failed to include a single criticism of Cornell’s restrictions.

Worse, one student, Ceci Rodriguez ’26, made demonstrably false assertions in a ludicrous argument for reinstituting masking, but Eicher and Rubinson made no attempt to contextualize or disprove her claims. Considering how willingly the Cornell administration trampled students’ rights in the name of COVID-19 absolutism, The Sun has a responsibility to call out flimsy COVID-19 rationalizations.

“If we’re required to wear [masks] at Cornell Health, ideally we should be required to wear them in every establishment,” Rodriguez was quoted as saying, “Your chances of getting COVID-19 in the building of Cornell Health [are] still the same chances of getting COVID-19 in any other building on campus...So why should [masking] not apply to all buildings on campus as well?”

Holding the rest of campus to the standard of Cornell Health would be ridiculous. First of all, Cornell’s continuance of the policy requiring masking in healthcare facilities is its own choice, and is more restrictive than advised by federal CDC recommendations, which were relaxed in September 2022. New York State actually ended its healthcare facility mask mandate over a month ago, on Feb. 12. Second, there are several good reasons to employ stricter masking requirements in health facilities than in other settings. In fact, healthcare facilities are famous for rigorously enforcing a sanitized, sterilized environment. It’s one of Cornell’s least disputable COVID-19 requirements.

Since healthcare facilities treat sick people, Cornell Health patients are more likely to be sick or have pre-existing conditions (like Rodriguez herself, as The Sun’s article notes), making them more susceptible to COVID-19 infection. Conversely, the sicknesses inducing patients to visit Cornell Health could very likely be COVID-19, a cold or influenza. Thus, the people who congregate at Cornell Health are both more likely to be vulnerable to COVID-19 and more likely to spread it than the average Cornell student.

The Sun has a duty to point out the arguments against Cornell’s COVID-19 restrictions, even if its writers disagree with them. If it will not, it should at least interview those who would. Were they unable to find any students with grievances against Cornell’s COVID-19 restrictions? Ignoring the critics is unforgivable. Cornell’s COVID-19 regime has no lack of victims: There was the class of 2020, who lost their commencement ceremony and senior spring semester. There were the students who were made to mask, test and isolate continuously for two years. And there were the students with religious objections or medical issues who were left in limbo for months while Cornell dithered with vaccine exemptions. Yet somehow, Eicher and Rubinson managed to interview only students who were appreciative and laudatory of Cornell’s actions.

If truly no one will provide criticism, I will. While the original measures were prudent, Cornell’s prolonged restrictions became ludicrous in their demands. As I have argued for years, many of Cornell’s restrictions were unnecessarily draconian, since the vast majority of Cornell students are young, fit and at low risk for COVID-19. The plight of the few who are at risk is regrettable, but it is no excuse to heap endless restrictions on everyone. As with all diseases, those at risk should take independent measures to reduce their exposure. Cornellians have sacrificed enough for COVID-19. We deserve far more than a complaisant, whitewashed account of the past three years.

Cullen O’Hara ’23

Just like any of our university’s community members, they deserve an administration that looks out for them and upholds its mission to “do the greatest good” as Cornell’s 3.6 billion dollar fundraising campaign claims. But, in the school’s relentless march of progress, the scores of RAs that cohabit Cornell’s dorms have been left behind and find themselves the victims of a revenue raising catch-22.

Recently in an effort to revamp their campus life in the wake of COVID19, the university has mandated several sweeping decrees meant to affect underclassmen. Firstly, starting with the class of 2025, all freshmen and sophomores are required to live in University owned campus housing. This of course comes with the implicit requirement to have a meal-plan as well.

What Cornell has also done, though, is drop the 10 and 14 meals a week meal plans and require on-campus underclassmen to buy into an unlimited meal plan. In their infinite charity, however, this plan is now charged at the former 14-meals a week rate. The guise, of course, is Cornell dining’s commitment to fighting food insecurity. One group that this change absolutely does not fight for is the residential advisors that staff all these newly occupied dorms.

Believe it or not, Cornell RA’s do not get free room and board. Sure, they are granted the privilege to live in the buildings they patrol, but their meals aren’t free. Like any of the students they write up, the typical RA also has to shell out for a meal plan.

Likewise, the policies Cornell mandates for its on-campus underclassmen population also apply to its on-campus RA’s. All incoming RA’s will be required to purchase the newly priced unlimited plan to the tune of $3,471.

One might then say, “at least they’re getting paid so they can afford it,” and you would be wholly wrong in that assumption. According to a contract that your author reviewed, the starting RA stipend is $3,050 per semester. By cutting the smaller meal plan and forcing them to buy this more expensive option, the University at the minimum stands to make $421 per head of their own employees.

Not only does this decision rob the RAs of their freedom to choose more affordable or smaller meal plan options, it also quite literally robs them and lines the University’s pockets.

Honestly, based upon historical precedent this latest twist isn’t much of a surprise. Despite all of our potential misgivings toward our freshman year RAs, the indisputable fact is that the University has long treated its residential advisors horrendously.

If we want to dive back into facts and figures, this becomes even clearer. The contract I reviewed says that RAs are required to work a minimum of 20 hours a week. For the fall semester this work period ran from Aug. 8 till dorm move-out on Dec. 19. That’s 19 weeks of employment. With the 20 hour requirement, an RA was contractually expected to work 380 hours. Dividing their stipend then by the hours worked reveals an hourly rate of just over 8 dollars per hour. This compensation alone should be illegal. The NY State minimum wage is $14.20, almost twice what an RA earns hourly.

With this latest meal plan decision, the university is asking these beleaguered RA’s to blow more than their entire measly stipend on the right to have access to breakfast, lunch and dinner. This isn’t just a tale of undervalued employees, it’s a narrative of continuous employer abuse.

To be clear, we’re not talking about just any employer either. Cornell is an ancient academic institution with an endowment surpassing $9 billion. For crying out loud, the University just raised a further 3.6 billion in a single calendar year. Why on Earth does Cornell need to nickel and dime its own student workers over a meal plan when it has cash reserves of this magnitude? I’m sorry, but it seems the answer can only be pure, unadulterated greed.

Someplace, somewhere along the line there was a conscious effort to disregard the welfare of residential advisors. I don’t know if it was a decision made by the board of trustees, Martha Pollock, Ryan Lombardi or Tim Blair (the executive director of Housing and Residential Life), but someone dropped the ball. Either that, or the idea of “Doing the Greatest Good” was a lie all along.

The meal plan is only the tip of the abusive iceberg, but it could very well be the spark of something bigger. Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for another RA strike. It could be the only way our administrators will pay attention to these unsung victims.

Tunnel Part. 21