Posted on 06/06/2020 6:21:28 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Prof. David Collum ’77, chemistry, has come under fire from both students and administrators for a series of Thursday night tweets defending police officers that pushed and severely injured an elderly man.
In a graphic film that has since become viral, a 75-year-old white man could be seen lightly brushing up against Buffalo police — who donned heavy tactical gear — as he approaches them. In response, two of the cops shoved the man, causing him to fall and hit his head. As the man lays bleeding and unresponsive, over a dozen officers appear to simply walk away, failing to deliver aid.
On Friday morning, authorities said the man was hospitalized in “serious, but stable” condition.
Following the video’s release, the Buffalo Police Department swiftly announced that it would suspend the two officers involved without pay. A slew of elected officials were quick to condemn the officers’ behavior, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) calling the incident “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful.”
But despite widespread condemnation of the recording, Collum argued in a tweet that the incident “wasn’t brutality,” and it happened because “the guy was feeble.”
“The cracked skull … was self-inflicted,” Collum wrote, defending the police’s aggressive response. “That guy needed to give that cop space.”
In a separate message, Collum tweeted: “Can you imagine how fried these cops are at this point? The guy got a nudge.”
The social media backlash to the professor’s controversial comments was swift, almost immediately prompting various calls for his ouster. Just one hour after Collum’s tweet, actor Kumail Nanjiani — best known for his starring role on HBO’s Silicon Valley — publicly called him out.
Collum, who declined The Sun’s request for comment, quickly turned his Twitter account private following the outpouring of criticism and condemnation.
While Cornell and its peers’ academic policies typically protect tenured faculty’s political speech — even when it’s controversial — the swift backlash to Collum’s comments has prompted the question of where, and if, a line should be drawn.
A day after the incendiary tweets, President Martha E. Pollack issued a statement that mostly condemned the actions of the Buffalo police officers, but added that Collum’s comments were “not just deeply insensitive, but deeply offensive.”
“While Professor Collum has a right to express his views in his private life, we also have a right and an obligation to call out positions that are at direct odds with Cornell’s ethos,” Pollack said in the statement, which was also signed by Provost Michael Kotlikoff and Cornell University Police Department Chief David Honan.
Students also penned a petition, demanding that the University fire Collum. As of Friday afternoon, the petition has 270 signatures from students and alumni.
“Cornell’s protection of him is shameful and offensive,” the petition read. “He is a perpetrator of institutionalized racism and a supporter of police brutality against peaceful protestors.”
A self-described “libertarian” on his Twitter profile, this is not the first time that Collum has made politically charged statements. In April 2017, graduate students said that Collum had a history of making sexist, bigoted and misogynstic comments, adding that the professor used transphobic slurs and that he believed that allowing young people to identify as their preferred gender was equivalent to child abuse.
Collum encouraged men accused of sexual assault to sue their victims in a February 2017 tweet, and made comments about how rape on college campuses is only a “perceived” threat.
The chemistry professor also sent an email filled with anti-union rhetoric in March 2017 to faculty members days before a certification election, writing that the unionization would pose “an existential risk to Cornell’s graduate program.” Collum wrote in the email that a union would be “impossible to remove it despite claims to the contrary. Forever is a very long time.”
Members of Cornell Graduate Students United said they were “appalled” that a faculty member would express explicitly anti-union views. CGSU alleged that Collum’s email violated the contract negotiated between the University and the union, claiming that the email could discourage graduate students to freely participate in a unionization recognition election.
Collum, however, contended that his email was intended only for faculty and was made public to students only because of a leak. At the time, the University conducted an investigation into the incident, and determined that Collum’s email did not violate the code of conduct negotiated in the contract.
Prof. William Jacobson, law, has been one of Collum’s biggest supporters on campus, writing that the letter to the editor signed by graduate students was “payback” for his anti-union views.
But Jacobson, too, has his own history of running starkly against campus opinion, holding a generally dismissive view towards Black Lives Matter. For instance, on his popular conservative blog Legal Insurrection, he recently wrote an article in which he blamed the rise of the BLM movement on “fraudulent narratives of the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown cases” that “concocted a false narrative of mass murder of Blacks at the hands of police, when the statistics show otherwise.” He also claimed that the law enforcement system is being undermined by “leftist billionaires,” including George Soros.
Collum’s and Jacobson’s comments come as universities across the U.S. grapple with how to respond to professors who make inflammatory or insensitive comments about protesters, police brutality and Black students.
At University of California, Los Angeles, accounting lecturer Gordon Klein took issue with students asking if their Black peers could be given accommodations during finals. Klein responded to the students’ request with inappropriate questions, asking how he should accommodate mixed students and claiming that Martin Luther King Jr. said “people should not be evaluated based ‘on the color of their skin.’” UCLA said it would now look into the incident.
Scott Senjo, formerly a professor at Weber State University in Utah, had to resign after tweeting that he would have driven a car into protesters and expressing support for attacking journalists covering the protests. The comments prompted swift backlash from students, and petitions calling for his termination soon circulated online. Ultimately, Weber State put Senjo on administrative leave before he had decided to resign.
It remains unclear whether the University will take any disciplinary action against Collum.
Soy Boy Mayor got kicked out of rally when he didnt agree to defund police
If Chain Saw Hispanic showed up they would be screaming to call the Popo
Dave Collum is a classical liberal - not a leftist. He is popular in the gold community, despite being a full professor of Chemistry, and puts out his popular annual end-fo-year economic review. He is one of the good guys.
So much for independence of thought and the free flow of ideas. Cannot allow that./S
I notice they left out the part that the 75-year-old, 6'4" agitator bragged on his facebook page about instigating events and escaping arrest.
The video looks like the guy faked it.
He was barely touched after getting right in the officers face.
Some of cities should declare martial law pull police back and bring in the natioal guard.
But like with COVID, leftists are c ounting on Trump getting the blame for the messes that they create.
Upstate *ping*
Personally unless being threatened with a weapon I would not work for a concern that condones shoving an old person back on their head, a likely outcome by the way. No, he was not reaching for a weapon with his hand full of phone, or other. Yes, he was and probably will always be a pain in the ass. Police training and big city union rules and protections are the problem. I could not imagine shoving an old man like that. Why was it so easy and natural for them? See above.
he was scanning their devices, as a means to track them....he flopped awkwardly but then laid down and crossed his feet at his ankles.....he was a guy much bigger then the cops....it was a farce..
You are full of crap. He was an antifa agitator, proven by other videos. He was scanning the police communication devices so other antifa terrorists could track them. He had been causing problems previously and other protesters had already tried to get him to leave, identifying him as an infiltrator trying to cause violence.
>> Cuomo (D-N.Y.) calling the incident “wholly unjustified and utterly disgraceful.”
Since when does the Nursing Home Killer care about the elderly?
Any Republicans who send their children to Cornell deserve their fate.
He appears to have been skimming police communications equipment with his cell phone.
Skimming police communications equipment. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2020/06/06/buffalo-officials-duped-by-professional-antifa-provocateur-arrest-and-charge-two-police-officers-righteous-police-team-stand-together-and-walk-out/
I am proud of chemists - they stick to facts
If you or I were pushed backwards, if we could not keep our footing, we would land on our butts, with hands or elbows by our side. It is the human instinct to elevate the head as we fall backwards. The only way he should have hit his head is if he was unconscious when he fell backwards. This was a flop that turned out badly for him.
You must have seen a very different video than the one I saw.
my lovely (cough cough) mom shoved me backwards in the chest when I was about four and I cracked my head on the kitchen floor. She looked at me and said How does that feel? I had to pick myself up and go lie down — I knew she had no regard for me whatsoever. I will never forgive her. I don’t love her. But yes, if you get pushed backwards you definitely hit your head.
When you've reached for the cop's side-arm you're basically telling the cop to treat you with an entirely different protocol.
A day after the incendiary tweets, President Martha E. Pollack issued a statement that mostly condemned the actions of the Buffalo police officers, but added that Collum’s comments were “not just deeply insensitive, but deeply offensive.”
Members of Cornell Graduate Students United said they were “appalled” that a faculty member would express explicitly anti-union views.
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