White Biologist Accuses Cornell of Using Race-Based Hiring Practices
Dr. Colin Wright: “A victory here will help ensure future scholars are not discriminated against in hiring because of their race. Merit should be all that matters.”
Evolutionary biologist Colin Wright filed a lawsuit against Cornell University for allegedly using race-based hiring and discriminating against white qualified candidates.
“The vacancy listing was flawed and unlawful from the very start, as it was designed by DEI administrators seeking to maximize the ability of applicants to strictly fill the ‘diversity axis,’ free of competition from white candidates,” according to the lawsuit.
🚨BREAKING: I have filed a lawsuit against Cornell University in federal district court in New York for their secret and illegal plot for an evolutionary biologist "diversity hire" that explicitly excluded qualified white candidates like me.https://t.co/omRdfEHAlJ
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) January 28, 2026
I can’t thank my legal team at @A1Policy enough for representing me and filing this case. A victory here will help ensure future scholars are not discriminated against in hiring because of their race. Merit should be all that matters.
— Colin Wright (@SwipeWright) January 28, 2026
Dr. Wright alleged discrimination by Cornell in July 2025, before filing a complaint in August.
Dr. Wright stated that he applied for numerous positions in America in 2019 and 2020, including at Cornell in its Neurobiology and Behavior Department.
However, the biologist discovered that Cornell had searched for a faculty member in his field, evolutionary biology, and kept this secret.
Unearthed emails show that Cornell had every intention of using race for consideration:
A Department email from early December 2020 declared that in order to obtain a “diversity hire,” it allowed DEI administrators to create an interview list consisting of only “underrepresented minority scholars.”
A mid-December Department email further stated that the DEI administrators had “focused especially on identifying candidates from some of the most underrepresented racial/ethnic groups” to create the pool of eligible candidates.
Indeed, in a December 23, 2020, email, Department Chairman Jeremy B. Searle (“Searle Email”) admitted that Cornell was “trying to do something a little out of the ordinary” in its search for a “hoped-for diversity hire.”
The Searle Email emphasized that the job search had been designed to eliminate any competition for this diversity hire: “[The Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion] is concerned about us having a Search dynamic. What we should be doing is inviting one person whom we have identified as being somebody that we would like to join our department and not have that person in competition with others.” (emphasis added).
Other emails included a spreadsheet that showed how a candidate satisfied the “diversity axis” qualification:
Of the top 25 candidates, all were listed as either black, Latina, LGBTQ, disability, American Indian, or Southeast Asian; not a single one had “white” listed by his or her name—and this was by design.
To ensure that no whites would interfere with the “diversity axis,” Cornell intentionally kept the faculty job opening private, in violation of University Policy 6.6.1, which requires vacancies to be posted on the Working at Cornell website for at least five business days.
The lawsuit said that Cornell filled the position with one of the candidates listed in the “diversity axis.”
Wright listed his many accomplishments and qualifications, comparing both to the other candidates.
“Indeed, upon information and belief, there is no reason Dr. Wright would not have been hired for the position but for Cornell University’s discriminatory practices and intentional violation of its own policies,” the lawsuit claimed.
Very proud to be part of seeking justice for Colin and all Americans who have been discriminated against based on skin color or ethnicity. If our laws tolerate discrimination for any reason at all, then no one’s protected.
The @A1Policy is here for this. https://t.co/ISxfdpm2yw
— Leigh Ann O'Neill (@LaLONeill) January 28, 2026
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Comments
cornell responded:
we arent racist we didnt even notice except that he wasnt blck
dude,,
I heard kentaji is hiring
She doesn’t need a biologist… Crocodile Dundee could teach her all she needs to know
I’m sure the fine folks in the Ivy League would be totes OK with a multi decade pre clearance regime set up to ensure their admissions, hiring and promotion practices didn’t stray into discriminatory actions and that was 100% openly transparent to and easily accessible to the public.
The term “diversity axis”. is a new one on me. It connotes some geometrical precision suitable for academic discourse with values assigned to different diversity metrics such as race, sex, … So one has to wonder about the values assigned to different races or sexes – and who would do that. Now I do wonder how “single drops of blood” or “non-binary” aspects of these metrics influence the assigned values. Is handedness one of the diversity axes? Or is the ability to delve deeply and logically into a topic represented on a diversity axes? I would venture to guess that the axes are configured so that the geometric origin is represented by straight white right-handed males. I think that we all would be greatly enlightened by an extensive tutorial on this promising line of research especially focusing on how it brings a high degree of academic rigor defining the “D” of DEI. Next should be an equally vigorous effort to bring that same rigor to define the “E”.
Perhaps Doctor Jacobson can enlighten us as to the identity of the diversity hire. Or would he rather that remain secret too? Or are we to be told it cannot be stated with certainty? We could use a good joke.
It is clear that for a long time that the Ivy League has done hiring based on race as look at Harvard and Elizabeth Warren with her being hired as a “Native American” when she was not.
actually she is a native american
but the left once again co-opted the term
so that whts cant use the term w/o argument
if you are born here you are native
The act of thinking is an act of bigotry in woke world.
I got a laugh out of that bit about violating their own policies. THOSE POLICIES AREN’T REAL!
The policies are for them to tell the federal government, “See? We’re completely compliant with the law. Now give us our money!!”
Note that that also applies to every other institution of higher education in the US. Probably also hospitals, courts, law firms, think tanks and everything else that ever had a leftist in a position of authority.
“What we should be doing is inviting one person whom we have identified as being somebody that we would like to join our department and not have that person in competition with others.”
Otherwise known as a “sole-source contract,” the Holy Grail for salesmen of products listed on the GSA Schedule.
Sole-source contracts are authorized only if there is only one vendor who can supply functionality that is absolutely necessary for the mission. Beltway Bandits publish guides listing such capabilities in their products, meant for handing out to friendly contracting officers who are in love with that product and don’t want anybody else’s; and those contracting officers write them into the contract and hope not to be challenged by GSA.
It’s such a racket, but at least checks and balances exist — not like in academia.
Since he never actually applied for the position I wonder if he has “standing” to sue. We shall see how far this gets.
A contingent fee civil rights plaintiff’s attorney should be happy to take this case. The documentary evidence cited in the article is crystal clear that It would have been futile for his client to apply for the position. This is clear reverse discrimination in violation of federal and state EEO law and now executive orders and perhaps even a breach of the settlement agreement CU recently reached with the federal government. Anyone who has read the Supreme Court’s Harvard college admissions decision can guess how SCOTUS would rule if this case got there.
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