Cornell students end sit-in

A four-day sit-in at Cornell University's main administration building ended yesterday afternoon with the promise of immediate negotiations between protesters and administrators. "The occupation of the administration building is over as of 3 p.m. this afternoon," Cornell spokesperson Linda Grace-Kobas said yesterday. "The students and administration have reached an agreement." The sit-in began spontaneously on Friday afternoon, when Latino students staged a rally in protest of the vandalism of a Hispanic art exhibit in the Central Arts Quad. The students then took over Day Hall. The exhibit, a piece called "The Castle is Burning" by Los Angeles artist Daniel Martinez, had a swastika and the words "Get the Hell Out" scrawled across it by anonymous vandals earlier in the week. Student protesters in the building, whose numbers varied from 70 to 400, said Friday they were concerned with issues including minority hiring and discrimination at the university and wanted to meet with Cornell President Frank Rhodes. "We'll do anything we have to to get [the administration's] attention," a student demonstrator who would not give his name said Friday night. "If it means sitting in the administration building for a week, we'll do it." When Rhodes returned to Cornell after attending the Penn-Cornell football game here on Saturday, he attempted to meet with the students, but claims they covered their ears so they would not hear him. The building was later sealed off by campus police and telephone lines were cut. While the sit-in remained peaceful throughout, Grace-Kobas said, there was an incident Saturday when 20 students protesting outside rushed the building and tried to enter, injuring two campus police officers. The demonstrators were suspended from the university after the Campus Code of Conduct was read to them at 2 a.m. Monday and they still refused to leave the building. "We know the consequences, we know the cause, we have chosen to stay," said Cliff Albright, one of the protesters. But as the protest drew to a close, campus judicial officers lifted the suspensions. With the evacuation of the building, a press release from the university said, Rhodes and faculty and student leaders immediately began to meet with the student protesters to discuss their concerns. "While I cannot condone the unlawful occupation of a building, it is essential that the entire campus community come to grips with the issues that have been identified," Rhodes said. The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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