“I believe Cornell would rather take a massive financial hit than give up their DEI programming”
“If the federal government wants to do true structural change to Cornell, it needs to get rid of DEI, particularly the DEI programming that started in July of 2020. Now, I don’t think the school will do it. Again, I have no inside knowledge on that, but it’s a religion to them.”
There are news reports — of dubious accuracy IMO — of Cornell University and the Trump administration talking about a Columbia-style deal worth $100 million. The Cornell Daily Sun student newpaper reported in early August:
The Trump administration and Cornell have reportedly come close to a settlement of as much as $100 million to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal funds, according to Bloomberg.
The deal is expected to be announced as soon as next week, according to Bloomberg’s unnamed sources. The reported progress in Cornell’s settlement discussions follows the Trump administration reaching agreements with Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Brown.
Of course, there was no deal announced “next week” or even now a month later. Whether a deal is close or not, I think the hyper-focus on dollars is a mistake. Structural change is needed at Cornell and elsewhere.
On May 12, 2024, soon after then President of Cornell Martha Pollack announced she was resigning, I wrote an op-ed in The NY Post about the July 2020 DEI Initiative imposed on the campus and its aftermath, and how unwinding that DEI Initiative was necessary, President Martha Pollack is quitting but to save Cornell, ditch DEI. Read the whole thing, it’s still relevant even though written over a year ago. The punch line was:
The July 2020 DEI initiative was a colossal mistake that cannot be tweaked around the edges.
It must be removed wholesale, weeded out root and branch.
I had a chance to talk about higher education and the Trump administration’s enforcement actions on my recent appearance on the JNS Podcast with Jonathan Tobin.
Here is the excerpt about Cornell, and my renewed call as to how the July 2020 DEI Initiative must be “weeded out root and branch” but how I believe “Cornell would rather take a massive financial hit than give up their DEI programming.”
(Transcript auto-generated, may contain transcription errors, lightly edited for transcript clarity)
Tobin:
… but the question is, can antisemitism be linked without also banning the DEI policies that put it in place?
WAJ:
Well, you can’t solve a thousand year old problem by getting rid of DEI, but you can lower its manifestations on campuses. You can get rid of the ideology which racializes everything, which puts Jews in the white oppressor category, and which encourages students to think of their lives based on identity group rather than individuals. And so it can be very helpful.
And I’ve been a complete advocate [for that], I wrote an op-ed in the New York Post about a year ago, when the Cornell President quit, saying that’s nice that the Cornell president has quit, but until Cornell gets rid of DEI completely, it can never solve its problems.
And that’s my position now. I’m advocating it. I hope, again, if somebody from the administration is watching, I hope if you do strike a deal with Cornell, that you insist that they unwind this horrific July 2020 anti-racism program agenda campus-wide that the former president imposed on the campus.
That’s the first step. Getting students, getting the campus to focus on the inherent worth of every individual rather than identity group is the first step to curing the campus problem. It’s not going to be enough in and of itself, but it would be a massive first step.
And personally, I would rather see the administration force Cornell to unwind, as I said in my New York Post op-ed, to rip out by the roots, the July 2020 anti-racism initiative, rip it out by the roots and all its manifestations, no matter how they’ve rebranded it as belonging and inclusion. They no longer use the term DEI, it’s now belonging and inclusion.
Go back, look at that July 2020 initiative that she imposed on the campus. Look at everything that’s manifested from it.
I’ve been at Cornell 18 years and I can see in my observation a clear dividing line in the problems on the campus for Jewish students. And that dividing line was that July 2020 anti-racism initiative. And it needs to be gotten rid of.
I’d rather see Cornell do that than have to pay a hundred million dollars to the federal government where it’ll just get lost in the federal largess.
If the federal government wants to do true structural change to Cornell, it needs to get rid of DEI, particularly the DEI programming that started in July of 2020.
Now, I don’t think the school will do it. Again, I have no inside knowledge on that, but it’s a religion to them. I believe Cornell would rather take a massive financial hit than give up their DEI programming.
And that’s something the Trump administration’s going to need to face. Are they going to force these schools to truly and completely abandon this racialized view of education? Because if you don’t get rid of that, if you allow that to linger in the background for three years, it’s just going to come right back.
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Comments
I’m sorry for you, given your connections to Cornell, but there are only 3 things that can convince ideologues to give up money: religion, politics, and sex. I cannot make any judgement as to the third, but to Leftists both religion and politics co-joined are what drives them.
Mind you, I don’t wish you ill; but if Cornell goes financially belly up in the name of ideology I will not be upset for them.
Subotai Bahadur
Recent graduates as trustees? Always a problem if they take over.
DEI at Cornell goes back as far as the building takeovers in 1969. That was the origin of segregated residences and “studies” degrees.
Probably true. And there was no punishment for those who participated in the armed takeover of WSH. There was no punishment for those that took over Carpenter Engineering Library in 1972. The administration is a bunch of pansies and pussies.
Maybe as part of the settlements they need consent decrees where there is oversight like with police departments and cases of voting rights.
Emory University announced last week it was ‘ending’ its DEI initiatives. In a letter to faculty, staff & students, the (interim) president of Emory said this: ‘Closing offices or REIMAGINING [emphasis added] lawful programs is not, after all, the same as ending our UNWAVERING COMMITTMENT to fairness, belonging, and opportunity for all, values that are part of Emory’s DNA.’
Most of the statements I’ve read from academic leaders more or less mirrors this one. They’re not ending DEI because they recognize it’s wrong, far from it. In fact, most of these statements reinforce the institutions’ commitments to DEI ‘principals,’ but acknowledge that the programs as currently instituted will run afoul of Trump’s Executive Order. So, they’re ‘ending’ it.
I believe the reality is DEI largely hasn’t gone anywhere except marginally underground at some institutions. Because of congressional failure to codify prohibitions against DEI – all the anti-DEI action thus far is from Executive Orders which will be undone literally within hours of a Democrat winning the White House – academia, Big Medicine and other key institutions are simply waiting Trump out. Johnson & Thune are as worthless as Boehner/Ryan & McConnell.
The terrible Bob Jones University case permits the feds to yank Cornell’s 501(c)(3) status if Cornell is engaging in racial discrimination. Even someone as dense as a college administrator or trustee should be able to comprehend that risk.
b/c they already have the money
they have the donors
they have congress in their pockets
while congress has us in their pockets
the courts are proving we are are in 1700s pre constitutional america
this is leading up to the unthinkable
There is zero doubt in my mind that IF Cornell ever claims it is giving up DEI, it will merely find ways to hide or disguise it.
When the light is turned on, the roaches and rats might go into hiding, but they never actually leave.
For many years, the school where I worked gave preference to minorities in faculty hiring. In some cases, white males were excluded from consideration. They knew it was illegal, but nothing would happen unless someone spilled the beans, and that was unlikely. But at any rate, they felt that if they were sued, they would settle quietly out of court, and that would just be part of the cost of doing business.
Dear Professor Jacobson,
Please do not take this sticky post down quite yet regardless of the pressure of current “News.”
It seems to me that much current news should be directly tied to this.
In honor of Charlie Kirk and discourse perhaps we should continue to “discuss” these issues.
If they actually had to get out of bed and work for a living, they would likely have an entirely different mindset.
But, the money, well…
It comes from elsewhere.
Of the same feather.
Dear Professor Jacobson, thank you for hanging on to this sticky,
thank you snowshooze for returning also, the push of the NEWS is great.
I have succumbed to emoji discourse myself and returned here, to the root, to your dear tired warrior’s face.
Better words than mine, Psalm 78:5 ESV my preferred, but in this case Psalm 78:5-8 The Message translation is useful.
Also James 3:13 ESV for me, but for discourse James 3:13-16 The Message is hysterical.
Again, thank you dear warrior.
Oh, YAF has a letter to colleges and universities.
I saw it at Townhall, I’m sure it will be elsewhere.
Does this seem compatible with DEI inquiries ?