Cornell Board of Trustees “Unanimous Vote in Support of President Martha E. Pollack”
DEI is a religion at Cornell. People don’t give up their religion easily.
In the least surprising development in the history of least surprising developments, the Cornell University Board of Trustees at its meeting this weekend rejected the call by Alumnus and Donor Jon Lindseth for President Martha Pollack to resign, issuing this statement:
Unanimous Vote in Support of President Martha E. Pollack
Cornell University Board of Trustees
Cornell was founded on the principle that ‘any person can find instruction in any study.’ Under President Martha E. Pollack’s leadership, the university has remained faithful to this principle and to the core values that unite our institution. Today, the Board of Trustees of Cornell University met and voted unanimously in support of her leadership of the university.
We believe the pursuit of knowledge is dependent on robust discourse that acknowledges differences while exploring shared values. Cornell proudly embraced diversity in its inaugural student body over 150 years ago and will continue to do so for the next 150 years.
“Free expression is the bedrock of democracy,” President Pollack said in her April 2023 announcement of Cornell’s current academic theme year, “just as academic freedom is the bedrock of higher education.” We remain committed to advancing the critical work of Cornell’s mission: teaching, research, and public engagement; and we look forward to continuing to advance it under President Pollack’s leadership.
This statement amplifies a prior statement by Board Chair Kraig Kayser supporting Pollack.
The statement is silent on the separate criticisms of Pollak’s embrace and expansion of the DEI initiatives on campus, but I doubt there is any dissent there either. I don’t have time right now to expand on that, but read my prior post, It’s Cornell Trustees Time For Choosing Whether To Rescue The Cornell Brand From The DEI Downward Spiral.
The Cornell Review asks the right question:
It remains to be seen whether DEI’s newfound attention at the Board of Trustees level will yield any changes in the Cornell bureaucracy.
An important concern expressed by the Lindseth letter is that the manner that Cornell implements DEI conflicts with merit. Given that Cornell is now under investigation by the Department of Education, all of Cornell will be more mindful of its core values, mission and “any person … any study” ethos.
DEI is a religion at Cornell. People don’t give up their religion easily.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Not a penny!
Take your kids out
This is WAR!
Close the checkbook, now know as the “Ackman strategy”.
What a shock . . .
LOL.
The pursuit of knowledge has nothing to do with social differences and/or shared values, let alone acknowledging or sharing anything about either of them.
Is Cornell a university or a kindergarten?
Pre-K. The wheels on the bus are falling off.
And, also, they’re not doing any of those things with DEI.
I would argue that the pursuit of knowledge is better associated with disparate values. You do not learn much talking to a mirror.
I would characterize it more as a cult than as a religion.
The board’s message is clear:
DEI is here to stay and if you do not like DEI, you can pound sand!
“Shared values” isn’t exactly diversity.
The left have many religions, like global warming, that all support giving themselves more power.
“It remains to be seen whether DEI’s newfound attention at the Board of Trustees level will yield any changes in the Cornell bureaucracy.”
“DEI is a religion at Cornell. People don’t give up their religion easily.”
Said another way, personnel is policy. Nothing’s changing until people start losing their jobs.
Birds of a feather, etc.,
On review, the Cornell board of Rusties finds it expedient to declare that they got it right the first time picking this here Prezzy.
Internally-imposed reform of a thoroughly corrupt institution is impossible. Such reform requires honesty, introspection, humility and the ability to admit fault. Cornell’s wretched and vile administrators clearly don’t possess these traits.
So, that means the Board of Trustees needs to go, too.
at what point will they have to dip into
their investments …. cuz if donors stop donating …..
They still have the tsunami of funding and loans from the feral government to fund their every wish. This is why the price of college has been outpacing inflation by a mile for decades.
Take all federal money away from these schools. No more student loans for anything. Let the students go into the private sector to get loans.
BTW, interestingly, BarkyCare had the federal government take over the student loan business (rather than jut providing guarantees to private lenders, the feral government actually became the lender for all) just so they could dishonestly claim with the “profits” that BarkyCare was revenue neutral (LOL). And the fact that Traitor Joe and the left are doing everything they can to allow former students to forgo paying for their loans (and saddle the rest of us with the bill) just adds un-Constitutional insult to un-Constitutional injury. In a sane, self-respecting society people would go to jail for putting together such a scheme, and they would serve hard time – really hard time.
Take away the feral money and all of these problems at the colleges and universities quickly disappear and tuitions start returning to reasonable levels.
Make those colleges use those endowments to guarantee the loans. Make them be the ones risking it on whether or not those students will complete their degrees.
American businesses should never hire Ivy League graduates or retirees. If their institutions want war on America, it has to be returned. Sorry Professor, but your employer has made its choice.
Subotai Bahadur
This is akin to the crew of the Titanic issuing a statement of support for Captain Smith after the ship hit the iceberg.
If I gave a damn about the trainwreck that the American education establishment, from pre-k through post-doc, has become, I’d say “Stick a fork in it. Cornell is done.”
If I gave a damn…
They ain’t gonna back off. That would be an admission the Board had effed up by:
1. Hiring the loony pres.
2. Installing DEI/CRT principles
3. Not previously conducting oversight/review of the Cray Cray results of the loony policies
Much easier to deny any problems exist and simply carry on with their neo Marxist totalitarianism cloaked in the soft language of ‘inclusiveness’. The many who benefit from the discrimination of others far outnumber those on campus who are on the receiving end of modern discrimination. Those folks ain’t gonna raise much by way of objections to a process that benefits them.
“any person can find instruction in any study.”
There may have been some “studies” which Ezra Cornell failed to imagine.
Did Cornell already have a near disaster several years ago due to mismanagement of their endowment investments?
Just confirms my decision many years ago when I stopped giving annually after Cornell hired the vile anti-Semite Cynthia McKinney as a “distinguished” visiting professor. I did put a bequest in our wills to the Vet school figuring the rot couldn’t possibly extend that far. However, we removed that bequest after Pollack decreed DEI would suffuse every aspect of the university and even the vet school website was replete in equity crapology. FWIW, we also removed an equal bequest to my husband’s Alma Mater Harvard on the same grounds. So I can say I Ackmaned before Ackman.
One more time, repeat after me: Martha Pollack, Claudine Gay, et al are not the problem, the boards (overseers, regents, trustees, etc) are.
The true meaning of “diversity, equity and inclusion” is Perversity and Exclusion!