Local News: April 19, 2024

Case Against Day Hall Protestors Conditionally Dismissed

A case against Cornell student and staff protestors will likely be dismissed. Twenty-four members of the Coalition for Mutual Liberation who staged a sit in at Day Hall in March appeared before Judge Seth Peacock Wednesday. The charges will be dropped  provided the defendants don’t commit further violations in the next month. According to the Ithaca Voice, Lance Salisbury of the Tompkins County DA’s offce described the group as “people engaging in peaceful dissent, trying to exercise their first amendment rights.”

HWS Professor Suspended Over Comments

A professor at Hobart and Willam Smith Colleges has been suspended for comments about Hammas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Accordning to WXXI, Jodi Dean has been a professor of politics at the school for roughly 30 years. She wrote about feelings of exhilaration following the attack and that “opression can and will be overthrown.” Dean has been barred from teaching while the school investigates whether her statements violate Title VI. That part of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on national origin. Dean commented on Twitter that “McCarthyism is real." 

Tompkins Free COVID-19 Test Program Ends

Tompkins Whole Health has ended it’s Free COVID-19 test kit program. The program provided over 275,000 kits free to the community since January of 2022. The county has also changed the way that it tracks the illness. The new dashboard tracks 7-day totals of positive test results reported to the New York State Department of Health.