Free Republic

Ithaca College President Thomas Rochon will step down next year over his failure to respond to racially sensitive issues in the appropriate manner. The decision came after much personal introspection, according to Rochon, after the faculty and students separately voted no confidence in his leadership in a vote that was inexplicably conducted via Survey Monkey, an unscientific method of deciphering opinion. Ithaca is a private college of around 7,000 students. According to news reports, faculty complained “he didn’t listen to anyone, he made decisions without input and he seemed to be following a business model rather than being concerned with...

Ithaca College President Thomas Rochon will step down next year over his failure to respond to racially sensitive issues in the appropriate manner. The decision came after much personal introspection, according to Rochon, after the faculty and students separately voted no confidence in his leadership in a vote that was inexplicably conducted via Survey Monkey, an unscientific method of deciphering opinion. In October 2015, on an alumni association panel one panelist, 1992 alumnus Tatiani Sy, said she had a “savage hunger” to learn and be professionally successful. A white 1976 alumnus participating, Christopher Burch, complimented Sy’s thirst for knowledge by...

The City of Ithaca’s zip code, 14850, ranks eighth on the list of United States zip codes giving most generously to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (D-Vt.) presidential campaign, according to a USA Today report based on Federal Election Commission data through Jan. 31. This generosity is largely due to grassroots efforts, Ithaca’s liberal nature and unprecedented enthusiasm from residents, according to local activists.... Members of the Ithaca and Tompkins County for Bernie Sanders Campaign, as well as the Ithaca branch of the Democratic Socialists of America for Bernie Sanders Campaign, said levels of local activism were partially responsible for Ithaca’s large...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- In a stairway located 107 seconds away from Dewitt Park in downtown Ithaca, used heroin needles and condoms littered the secluded steps Monday morning -- the same as every morning. That ... is exactly the kind of thing officials hope to prevent with the radical new measures proposed in The Ithaca Plan... essentially allowing addicts to get free heroin and shoot up in a safe, clean locations... Mayor Svante Myrick -- who founded a drug task force to research the heroin epidemic happening in Ithaca two years ago -- is an advocate... In short, heroin assisted therapy...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- A Cornell student is suing New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after claiming that the legal drinking age of 21 makes him feel "ostracized and excluded" from other graduate students. The action was filed by Matthew Uhalde Wednesday at the Tompkins County Court. According to the documents, Uhalde claims to have graduated in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science degree and was admitted to a graduate program at Cornell University in fall 2015, at the age of 19. Uhalde says that because nearly all unofficial graduate school activities involve alcohol, he is not able to have a...

ITHACA, NY - Tuesday morning, Mayor Svante Myrick wrote a Facebook post pledging to welcome Syrian refugees to Ithaca. Myrick said, "I'll do everything in my power to welcome Syrian refugees to Ithaca. We must guard against terrorism, and if they have no place to go these refugees are the most likely to be victims of terrorist acts." Accompanying the post was a poll conducted by Fortune Magazine in 1938 and republished in The Washington Post this morning. The poll displays American's opinions toward refugees displaced during World War II in 1938. The poll showed that Americans were overwhelming against...

ITHACA, NY -- Hundreds of Ithaca College students and supporters gathered at the center of campus Wednesday to demand the resignation of college president Tom Rochon and an overhaul of the structures at the campus that they said make students of color feel unsafe and excluded. The protest, which began around 1:30 p.m. and attracted at least 750 people, was in response to what organizers said were a series of incidents that demonstrated cultural insensitivity and exclusion of certain groups.

Video from investigative journalism outfit Project Veritas (PV) released Thursday morning shows a Cornell administrator shredding a copy of the U.S. Constitution after a PV journalist posing as a student told the administrator the document is triggering. Elizabeth McGrath, Cornell’s Lead Title IX Investigator, is seen in the video feeding pages from a pocket-size Constitution through a paper shredder after the undercover journalist says it would be therapy for her. McGrath asks the journalist if she would like to participate, an offer she declines. I have my own personal reasons why the Constitution is very triggering for me, the PV...

Cornell University is defending its decision to remove a Fox News Channel reporter from campus after he asked questions about "liberal bias." The … college made national news Monday when host Bill O'Reilly sent … reporter Jesse Watters to investigate a report that claims 96 percent of political donations from faculty over the past four years went to Democratic candidates. The … segment asked students if they thought there was a liberal "indoctrination" on the Ithaca campus, but was interrupted by Cornell's deputy director of media relations Melissa Osgood asking them to leave. Neither Osgood nor John Carberry, the Ivy...

A Central New York college is under fire for kicking Fox News Channel off campus after questions about the school's alleged "liberal bias." Bill O'Reilly spoke Monday night about a recent Cornell Sun newspaper report that claimed 96 percent of the more than $600,000 in political donations from Cornell University faculty went to Democratic candidates. Only 15 of 323 donors gave money to "conservative" politicians, the Fox News host said. O'Reilly complained that it didn't seem diverse enough, so he sent "O'Reilly Factor" producer and reporter Jesse Watters to ask professors and students if they thought there was a liberal...

Of the nearly $600,000 Cornell’s faculty donated to political candidates or parties in the past four years, over 96 percent has gone to fund Democratic campaigns, while only 15 of the 323 donors gave to conservative causes. The Sun’s analysis of Federal Election Committee data reveals that from 2011 to 2014, Cornell’s faculty donated $573,659 to Democrats, $16,360 to Republicans and $2,950 to Independents. Each of Cornell’s 13 schools — both graduate and undergraduate — slanted heavily to the left. In the College of Arts and Sciences, 99 percent of the $183,644 donated went to liberal campaigns. The law school...

ITHACA, N.Y. — Kurt A. Jordan, associate professor in Cornell University’s department of anthropology and Native American studies, has found evidence through his research that suggests several parts of Ithaca lies above ancient burial grounds of Haudenosaunee Indians. Jordan said his finding are based on a “paper trail” of books and documents, some dating centuries ago, because he didn’t have the permission to excavate in Ithaca.

ITHACA, N.Y. — A 20-month waiting period for a pistol permit in Tompkins County is too long to wait for a gun and doesn't keep anybody safer. That's how long it will take me — a person with no criminal history and no mental illnesses — to get a permit. I probably come to the table with a perspective different than most New Yorkers. I'm a Texas girl from a primarily conservative family who considers going to a gun range and grabbing lunch a wonderfully spent Saturday with my relatives. I don't think my background, however, changes the fact that...

Ithaca, N.Y. — A new study claims to track differing levels of racism across the United States by using Google search data. The results are not so good for the area that includes Ithaca. Large swaths of Western New York and the Southern Tier, according to the researchers, are far likelier than other regions of the country to input racist search terms into Google. That means the areas are more likely to be racist, according to the researchers, who tie the results to black mortality rates across the country. The study, published in PLOS One by data scientist Stephens-Davidowitz, was...

This guy is either the dumbest Ivy League bigwig ever or politically correct to a fault — for welcoming offers to bring ISIS and Hamas to Cornell University. A video sting operation shows Cornell’s assistant dean for students, Joseph Scaffido, agreeing to everything suggested by an undercover muckraker posing as a Moroccan student. Scaffido casually endorses inviting an ISIS “freedom fighter’’ to conduct a “training camp” for students at the upstate Ithaca campus — bizarrely likening the activity to a sports camp. Is it OK to bring a humanitarian pro-“Islamic State Iraq and Syria” group on campus, the undercover for...

Ithaca, N.Y. — Despite the efforts of local officials, vaccination rates for some Ithaca schools are significantly lower than both the New York State and national averages. How at risk is Ithaca? There are no reported cases here, but state statistics show that some Ithaca area schools have vaccination rates for measles as low as 72 percent — compared to the average rate of 95 percent for the state at large. The 95 percent figure is key, because it’s the rate at which an “effective herd immunity” is established to prevent the spread of a disease like measles Ithaca [is]...

AARP is calling out (Democrat congressional candidate Martha) Robertson for improperly using AARP’s name in her ads, violating AARPs non-partisan status and falsely implying that AARP has taken sides in the race.... Beth Finkel, state director for AARP in New York, issued a statement after learning of its name and logo appearing in the Ithaca Democrat’s campaign ads in the race for the 23rd Congressional District seat currently held by U.S. Rep. Tom Reed, R-Corning. “AARP does not endorse candidates or make contributions to political campaigns or candidates,” Finkel said. “AARP did not authorize the use of its name or...

Ithaca, N.Y. — Leaflets calling a conservative columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun a “Racist Rape Apologist” have been anonymously distributed around campus. Julius Kairey, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and author of a biweekly Sun column titled, “Always Right,” recently wrote a column about sexual assault that drew rebuttals. The circulated leaflets show a photo of Kairey. Under the photo, the words, “Daily Sun Columnist and Racist Rape Apologist” appear. No other text, no specifics supporting the allegations, are printed on the page.... The most recent Kairey column takes issue with a new California law...

<p>A male victim was sexually assaulted at Ithaca College shortly after midnight on Sunday, according to the IC Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management.</p> <p>The attack occurred around 12:10 a.m. Sunday on the walking trail behind Wood Field between Circle Apartments and the Terraces, a statement from IC said.</p>

A grandmother of three was sentenced to one year at the Onondaga County jail Thursday in DeWitt Town Court after she was found guilty of violating an order of protection while protesting at Hancock Air Base. Mary Anne Grady-Flores, 58, of Ithaca, was charged with second-degree criminal contempt on Feb. 13, 2013 after an order of protection was issued, barring Grady-Flores from going near Col. Earl Evans, the mission support group commander at the 174th Attack Wing of the New York Air National Guard, on Oct. 25, 2012. The protection order was valid for one year... She went to trial...