At Cornell University, Slope Day is sacred. It’s our release valve — a rare moment of unity on an otherwise high-pressure campus. A space where music drowns out the noise of deadlines, GPAs, and even political differences. For one afternoon, students gather on the iconic Cornell slope, and the entire student body comes together as a true community.
But this year, the announcement that Kehlani would headline the event brought something new: a powerful sense of disenfranchisement. Not because of her music, but because of what she’s posted to her millions of followers: “Zionists are the scum of the earth.” “F*** Israel from the top of my lungs.” “There is only one solution: Intifada. Revolution.” And “no one should feel comfortable or safe until Zionism is extinguished.”
To Jewish students, including me, this wasn’t a political critique. It was hate speech — targeted, dehumanizing, and deeply personal. It forced us to confront a bigger question: What does free speech really mean on a college campus? And who decides when it crosses a line?
Let’s start here: No one is trying to silence Kehlani. She is entirely free to express herself as she sees fit on her own platform. This isn’t about censorship or denying an individual’s right to expression. This is about whether Cornell should amplify that expression with student funds on a stage meant to unify an entire campus. There’s a difference between controversial speech and genocidal rhetoric. That distinction matters. And in this case, it was ignored.
The right to speak freely doesn’t include the right to be invited, and paid hundreds of thousands of dollars, to headline a university-sponsored concert. Slope Day isn’t just any campus event. It’s partially funded by the student activity fee, which every student is required to pay. That means Jewish students were expected to help fund a performer who celebrated violence against their community.
Some have argued that the decision to cancel Kehlani’s performance is an act of censorship, but censorship is when the government bans speech. This was a programming decision: a values-based choice about what kind of environment Cornell, as a community, wants to foster, and whose voices we choose to elevate.
This is where nuance matters. Universities should be places where difficult conversations happen. Places where students are pushed to engage with challenging ideas. I believe that wholeheartedly. But there’s a difference between engaging with challenging ideas and paying someone with student funds to lead a celebration while she calls people like me “scum” and suggests that I shouldn’t feel safe.
Saying Zionists are evil and glorifying “resistance” in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack that killed over 1,000 civilians isn’t criticism. It’s incitement.
The deeper issue at play is the double standard.
Had an artist posted that queer students shouldn’t feel safe, or that black activists were “evil,” they never would have been invited in the first place. The vetting process would have caught it. The outrage would have been instantaneous. But when it’s antisemitism, the conversation is different. We’re told it’s just politics, as if Jewish safety is an abstraction.
That’s the reality we’re grappling with, and it’s exhausting. Jewish students are asked to explain, to justify, to prove that what we’re experiencing is real. We’re told to sit down and “engage” when the messages we’re engaging with actively deny our humanity.
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This moment could be a turning point, but only if Cornell and universities broadly confront the selective way they apply their values. Transparency and inclusion have to mean something. They have to apply to all students.
Free speech is vital, but so is the right of every student to feel that their school has their back. These are not mutually exclusive, and we need to stop pretending that honoring one requires sacrificing the other.
Amanda Silberstein is a junior at Cornell University.