“My Free Speech is Being Impinged,” Writes Yet Another Student in Largest Campus Newspaper

ITHACA—On Friday evening, Joshua Barkley ‘21 detailed Cornell’s desire to stifle free speech in a campus newspaper consumed by 20,000 readers, the seventeenth opinion piece of its kind published this year.

“Barkley’s enlightening views on the silencing of conservative voices on Cornell’s campus is truly groundbreaking stuff,” said conservative commentator Aaron Northrup ‘02. “It is frankly disturbing that prior to this exposé, only sixteen students had been given the opportunity to decry this unjust state of affairs in front of the entire student body this year.”

The essay, which chastised the university for uninviting problematic and unpopular speakers, is being hailed as a fearless defense of civil liberties on par with the previous dozen pieces published by the same site over the past few months.

“As a cisgender heterosexual conservative white man, I’ve faced a lot of discrimination here at Cornell,” said Barkley. “Like the four others who have published this exact viewpoint in the past month, I knew I was taking a big risk telling my story. But this issue could not live in the shadows anymore.”

At press time, three more op-eds on the same topic had been published by the same paper.

OP-ED: These Bitch Ass Bees Keep Bothering Me While I Try to Eat

COLLEGETOWN BAGELS—Let me begin by establishing that I’m normally extremely easygoing. A friend is running late to a meetup? I understand. Got rejected from my dream job? Things happen. Nothing, however, has tested my patience as much as those buzzy little shits that refuse to stay away from my latest CTB California Sunshine bagel. 

I’m out here minding my own business, hoping to enjoy a toasted garlic-y, onion-y, bready delight. But right as I open my mouth to take a bite of this warm embrace of cheese and avocado, this bitch ass bee interrupts me. He’s trying to intercept me like the professional basketball player he most decidedly is not. At a table of four people, you really wanted to single me out, huh? What kind of damn call out is this? 

Frankly, I’m just a little taken aback by the audacity of these creatures to insert themselves where they are clearly not invited. As if their tiny ass mouths could even fit a crumb of my rosemary salt bagel in their feeding receptacles, if they even have ones. So what’s the point? Why are they doing this? Are they trying to starve me? Did my mom orchestrate this because she noticed I was “looking a little chunky” last time I visited? Did I ask them to invite themselves over and help themselves to my meal and my conversation? I think the fuck not. 

Has personal space become too much to ask for these days? It’s not that hard to occupy literally any other cubic foot of this outdoor air space. He needs to take a goddamn hint and politely piss the fuck off. All I’m asking is for the opportunity to get a bite in before my food gets cold.