Clinics at Cornell Law engage with communities all over the world, but much clinical work also takes place right in the Law School’s backyard, tackling concerns in the city of Ithaca and surrounding communities. It’s no surprise, then, that students in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic contributed extensively to a campaign that resulted in the Ithaca Common Council’s recent unanimous vote to end the city’s contract with surveillance company Flock Safety.

The leading U.S. purveyor of automated license plate readers, Flock has contracts with thousands of law enforcement agencies and businesses across the country. As concerns over data-sharing between local and federal agencies have grown over the past year, communities are increasingly challenging those contracts.

Among those communities is a group of Ithaca residents, who reached out to the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Clinic in the summer of 2025 to discuss how they might get Flock cameras removed from their city. That fall, students Eric Simmons ’27, Marieya Jagroop ’26, Shaina Zargari ’26, and Leo Villa-Forte ’27 took on the task, delving into a multifaceted advocacy project that was continued this spring by Simmons and Paul Janes ’26.

Eric Simmons ’27

This project is about people deciding how they want to be policed and deciding what type of community they want to live in,” says Simmons. “The people of Ithaca decided Flock was not welcome here.”

The students researched Flock’s practices, spoke with community members and legislators, developed informational resources, and testified at public meetings. “One thing that became clear was that the work would need to focus relatively less on the legality of mass surveillance and more on the nuts and bolts of local government,” says G.S. Hans, founding director of the clinic.

“As I joked with the students, I thought the project would be like Minority Report, but it ended up being much more ‘Parks and Recreation.’”

That didn’t make it any less challenging. Simmons notes, “The details around how the city and county contracts with Flock worked, how city and county procedures operated, how the chain of responsibility for various programs flowed, and how to actually go about trying to change things were often extremely opaque and difficult to pin down.”

Shaina Zargari ’26

Navigating these minutiae forced the students to build their advocacy muscles. “The biggest skill I developed was communication, both within our team and the local government,” says Zargari. “In addition, we often had to put ourselves in the shoes of both the client and Flock to understand the merits of both sides so that we could present our information as effectively as possible.”

She adds, “The most rewarding part of this work was getting to know the community members who were at the forefront of the movement, and to build relationships with them. After living in Ithaca for six years, it was great to give back to the community during my final year here as a 3L.”

Ultimately, the students’ work bolstered a coalition of local residents, council members, and grassroots groups that succeeded in ending the contract between the Ithaca Police Department and Flock. (Along the way, Simmons was quoted in a New Republic story on the issue.)

“Because of the multifaceted nature of the problem—much of which engaged with issues of policy in addition to legal questions on municipal contracts, crime statistics, and state funding streams—I was incredibly impressed and thrilled with my students’ enthusiasm for this project,” says Hans. “The community members sang their praises, and I was grateful that we could help support their work.”