We’ve all heard of classes being canceled. Imagine if your classmates tried to cancel you and your enrollment at the school you were attending. This is what’s currently happening at New York’s Ivy League Cornell University.
A group of students called “Concerned Cornell Students Coalition” have started a Change.org petition campaign to ‘rescind acceptance’ of’ first-year student Jessica Zhang for partying with her friends while not complying with the University’s COVID-19 social distancing and mask guidelines.
Cornell freshman Jessica Zhang has a massive following on TikTok. (Image via Change.org)
Zhang could be described as a prolific ‘TikToker’ – frequently posting to the video social network under the account @zhangarang having amassed over 500K followers and 12M likes.
The group has posted to Dropbox images and videos, including one of the parties in question, to put further shame on the Cornell freshman.
Their official statement posted online was written in the all-too-familiar now ‘Karen’ style rant:
“Recently, Jessica Zhang (among other careless freshman underclassmen) hosted and attended parties in Collegetown. While Cornell’s MANDATORY COVID-19 educational training and common sense should be enough to deter people from partying during a national pandemic, it simply isn’t enough to stop many reckless Cornell students.
Cornell University is attempting to take the biggest feat of allowing all students back on campus. This cannot be done without immense safety precautions taken and the compliance of every student. Jessica Zhang has shown that she does not care to comply to public safety measures and wants to put other citizens at risk for the sake of her own entertainment. These are NOT what Cornell students value and she is a horrible representation of what the university stands for during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC.
We need to hold these students accountable for their actions. If this is the type of behavior that Jessica Zhang is willing to publicly show, she does not need to be a student at Cornell– risking the lives of many other underprivileged students and Ithacans who do not have the resources/means to leave Ithaca or travel back to their homes.
Please sign this petition in support of removing her status as a student at Cornell. She does not belong at an institution where she recklessly endangers local residents, students, and disparages the reputation of Cornell. The University must take a hard stance on students who will not comply to social distancing guidelines and measures to de-escalate COVID-19.”
To date, the online petition to ‘de-densify’ the campus by removing Zhang has collected about 4,200 signers toward its goal of 5,000.
For the 2020 fall term, Cornell has allowed students back to campus and is delivering instruction with a mix of “in-person, online and hybrid teaching modalities” at their Ithaca, NY campus.
According to its own COVID-19 Dashboard, the Ivy League institution has reported just 47 confirmed ‘positives’ out of a total student, faculty and staff population of approximately 30,000.
Snapshot of Cornell’s COVID-19 alert system. (Source: https://covid.cornell.edu)
A quick check of the dashboard also reveals Cornell’s current ‘alert level’ is on the color yellow, indicating a low to moderate risk. Should the university decide that the situation has improved, the campus could be upgraded to the color green which has the Orwellian title of “New Normal.”
Jessica Zhang on a recent Inside Edition report that also included her classmates who want to cancel her.
Zhang recently appeared on the TV news program, Inside Edition, in response to the petition, expressing remorse for her actions and adding that all who attended the party “tested negative before getting together.”
‘Covid canceling’ has become a recent trend across the U.S. as schools begin to reopen. Even students themselves have been conditioned to prefer staying home until the supposed threat of the virus subsides.
Just last month, University of North Carolina’s student newspaper ripped its administration for creating a ‘cluster-f’ by allowing in-person instruction too soon.
Correction: This article originally stated that Cornell had started its fall 2020 term with “full in-person” instruction. Even though students are allowed on campus, according to its website, it’s “a hybrid approach to a residential semester (with in-person, online and hybrid teaching modalities).”
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