“What an exciting time to be young and aware.”

Judge Scott Miller told us that in the eighties when he was in college, right here at Cornell, students took to the arts quad to protest against apartheid in South Africa. “The United States government was doing its job so well that we had to protest injustices in other countries.” I smiled a bit ruefully; it’s exhausting being young and aware in 2018. But he comforted us with an assurance that the world isn’t ending, that the chaos we see is just the “death rattle of the old order,” and that America will survive this current crisis of democracy the way it survived the Civil War and Civil Rights movement. Then he read us the anonymous New York Times op-ed letter aloud, as I pulled it up and read it on my phone. Looking around Dean Avery’s apartment, I realized that I was sitting through a moment of history. I truly enjoyed the experience, and my outlook on the state of the Union and the world is a bit less pessimistic now thanks to Judge Miller.