Study: 76% of ILR Students Cite Doreen Cronin’s Seminal Pro-Labor Manifesto “Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type” as Strong Political Influence

IVES HALL—New research has confirmed that the vast majority of ILR students were drawn to their major due in part to the political ideology presented in Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, Doreen Cronin’s 2000 commentary on labor relations in the American heartland.

“Click, Clack, Moo completely revolutionized my life when I first read it as a four-year-old,” said Janine Calvin ‘24. “I’ve read dozens of studies on unionization and labor policy in the US during my time at Cornell, but none have illustrated the labor movement nearly as well as Cronin did. Actually, I think Betsy Lewin did the illustrations for the story. More academics should try drawing little cows on their papers, I think it could make them a lot more fun and engaging.”

The study indicated that ILR students most resonated with the book’s themes on the necessity for workers to demand basic rights (here, electric blankets to keep the cows warm at night), the power of the collective bargaining process (the herd’s ultimate triumph at winning the blankets after withholding milk), and the struggle inherent to winning concessions from an obdurate ruling class (the resistance provided by Farmer Brown, whom respondents frequently described as a “capitalist shitpig”). Despite this far-reaching support from ILR students, however, other students in other majors were less approving of the story.

“That book is absolute bullshit—and listen, I know a thing or two about bull shit,” said animal science major Derrick Madison ‘23. “First of all, cows can’t fucking type. This is, like, Animal Science 101 over here, I swear we learned that on the first day. And while it’s true that if the cows could communicate in English, they would indeed request electric blankets, I don’t buy for a minute that the ducks would ask for a diving board for their pond. They can fly, they could just dive into the water if they wanted to! God, it’s so fucking stupid. How all those ILR dumbasses can see past these obvious failings is beyond me.”

The study noted that the other 24% of ILR students felt that Farmer Brown acted well within his rights and that the cattle should have been forced to pull themselves up by their hoofstraps or risk being turned into beef.

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