.... I'm struggling to understand what kind of experience is exclusive to a particular race and is so generalisable that everyone of that race is rational to fear it and nobody of any other race has any business entertaining the possibility.
Perhaps
'exclusive' is too strong. But we can still identify experiences that are/were race-related. And I think not having
'any business entertaining the possibility' is a bit strong too. The BIPOC experiences/concerns were singled out for mention and validating, yes, but as we now see, anyone else could make a case (albeit not on BIPOC grounds). In theory, the son or daughter of a white ex-soldier who had been the victim of biomedical experiments on soldiers could try to make a similar case.
I see no reason to suppose students who request an exemption based on their personal experiences with historic and current injustice wouldn't have to produce a similarly detailed statement.
The medical and religious exemptions were based on NY state law. The flu vaccination exemption is Cornell policy and not based on state law. It is entirely possible that exemptions for 'Behavioural Compact' flu vaccinations are more lenient. But even if it's the case that you have to be very articulate and make a very convincing case for an 'other' exemption, if Cornell gives exemptions to any BIPOC students that it would not have given to white students, it seems to me impossible to claim that it isn't a race-based exemption.
Imo, it is both race-based and not race-based. If certain events happened that partly caused a certain subset of a population to have particular concerns, then it's mainly based on those concerns, not the colour of their skin. To take an extreme hypothetical alternative example for illustration/comparison purposes only, if Jews in Europe after 1945 had previously had experiences that led some of them to have concerns about taking part in some official medical program or other, then a potential exemption on those grounds would not merely be entertained because they were Jewish, but more because of the events that gave rise to the concerns.
In principle at least, addressing race-based problems can legitimately have a race-based approach. If the plumbing in my old house is leaking badly, I try to get a plumber, I don't necessarily advertise to get a different tradesman to fix everything else about the house at that same time. It's not anti-electrician to do that. The USA has
plumbing race-based problems.
I do still think this was a bit too woke in the circumstances, for reasons given. I think many here might agree with Arctish in saying that the original wording that blastula unearthed might, on the whole, have been better left as it was, and/or that the first revision was at least better than the final version. The line between being too accommodating and not being accommodating enough is a thin one, especially at the moment, with all the heightened political tensions around race, imo. It's a minefield.
I do wonder how many young BIPOC people of college age in the US actually have the particular mistrust in question based on their own racial experiences, rather than perhaps via the influence on their opinions of the experiences, communicated to them at home, of their parents or grandparents. Sure, the young BIPOC might have the view that for a variety of reasons, access to healthcare is still not as good for their demographic, but that would only seem relevant if (a) their access was here being restricted in some way or (b) they were being singled out for a (possibly seen as dubious) treatment.
'Cornell seeks to dissuade BIPOC from getting crucial healthcare' or
'Cornell targets BIPOC for lesser treatment' would be much more controversial headlines.
