Students stage sit-in at Cornell

Claim discrimination against Latinos While the Quakers and the Big Red battled it out on Franklin Field Saturday, a battle of different proportions was raging high above Cayuga's waters. About 300 Cornell University students began a spontaneous sit-in at the school's main administration building Friday afternoon following a rally on campus, a student leader who would not give his name said. As of last night, about 70 students, led by the campus' Latin American Students Association, continued to occupy Day Hall on the Ithaca, N.Y., campus. They object to Cornell's "outright discriminatory practices" against Latino students and faculty, the student leader said. Among the problems cited by the protesters are obscene phone calls to Latino students, vandalism of a Hispanic cultural art exhibition in the Central Arts Quad, and what protesters said is a lack of minority representation among Cornell's faculty and student populations. Protesters said Friday that they occupied the building when they were not allowed to have a meeting with Cornell President Frank Rhodes. Rhodes attempted to meet with the students at 1 a.m. Sunday morning, when he returned to Ithaca after watching Saturday's Penn-Cornell football game. But, according to a university press release, demonstration leaders refused to allow Rhodes to talk to the students. Rhodes said he would be willing to discuss their concerns, provided they ended their occupation of the building. Last night, Rhodes said he was deeply involved in negotiations with the protesters. "I have been to the building to talk, and we are continuing to talk [right now]," he said. Linda Grace-Kobis, a Cornell University Police spokeswoman, said from inside the building that the demands of the protesters have been "fluid." They are requesting "more recognition of their history, culture, literature and language," she said. According to the university police, two campus police officers were injured as a result of the group's demonstration. In addition, telephone lines and fax lines into Day Hall were cut off by the university, Grace-Kobis said. Here at the University, the question of minority representation both on the faculty and among the student body have been provocative ones. In February 1992, the issue of Latino representation came to a head when then-Latin American History Professor Dain Borges was denied tenure, in a move that many said would jeopardize the future of Latin American studies at the University. A protest that year against the University's hiring and recruitment practices on College Green drew approximately 60 students. Latino leaders at the University said last night that while they had not been aware of the Cornell sit-in, they sympathized with the reasons behind the demonstration. "I definitely don't believe there are enough Latinos in either the faculty or the student body [at the University]," Asociacion Cultural de Estudiantes Latino Americanos President Lissette Monge said. "There is a lot of untapped potential that we don't really recruit." Monge said that something similar to the Cornell demonstration could very well happen at the University. "We probably should do something like that here," College junior Monge said. "We could really make a difference, if we were to all act together." Daily Pennsylvanian Staff Writer Daniel Gingiss contributed to this story.

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