Um, what?
Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science’s (SIPS) Diversity and Inclusion Council has a specific vision and view of the school (emphasis mine):
“Our efforts have gained momentum with the surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement last spring,” says Hale Tufan, SIPS’ Chair of Diversity and Inclusion. “But our mission is much broader and addresses racism and discrimination of all kinds, and aims to build an inclusive culture focused on social justice.”Tufan, who is also a Research Professor in the Department of Global Development and SIPS’ Plant Breeding and Genetics Section, convened the SIPS Diversity and Inclusion Council last October. The Council’s charge is to help coordinate SIPS’ responses to inequities, including advising SIPS’ Director and Executive Committee on policy and structural changes to break down barriers and promote diversity.The Council’s vision is for an inclusive SIPS community that flourishes because it values and supports diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. It recognizes that our institution was founded on and perpetuates various injustices. These include settler colonialism, indigenous dispossession, slavery, racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, and ableism.“We seek to address and repair the harms caused by these intersecting forms of oppression,” the Council’s vision statement concludes.
The statement has been up since March 2021.
Our very own Professor Jacobson stuck up for SIPS’ free speech:
Asked to weigh in on the diversity statement, Cornell University law professor William Jacobson told The College Fix he fully “support[s] Cornell’s freedom of speech to engage in self-criticism, even if that self-criticism amounts to inaccurate self-abasing virtue signaling.”But, he added, “Cornell is not the place portrayed in that statement, and it’s bizarre to me that a Cornell academic unit would use such a description of our campus and community.”
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