Upcoming trustee elections represent a chance for sane graduates of the troubled institution to push it in the right direction — despite the university’s interference.
Upcoming trustee elections represent a chance for sane graduates of the troubled institution to push it in the right direction -- despite the university’s interference.
F or reputation-tattered Cornell University, 2024 was a bad year — the pain self-inflicted. As the school prepares for late-February elections of alumni members to the Board of Trustees, one wonders: Will 2025 deliver another (self-infliction encore!) Ivy League black eye?
Some concerned graduates are refusing complacency while the university board relentlessly rubber-stamps the administration’s ideological obsessions, tarnishing the once-prestigious brand. They have grabbed an opportunity — the formal, annual election of two new alumni trustees — to put two fresh-thinking, independent, and unendorsed (more on that below) candidates on the ballot.
More about those elections in a moment. But first, a (recent) history lesson. Go back barely a year ago, to late January 2024. That was when the university board showed remarkable public obtuseness when it “voted unanimously to support the tenure of President Martha Pollack in the face of growing concerns over her leadership and calls for her resignation,” as reported by the College Fix.
Within four months of that unanimous (64 members!) got-your-back act, Cornell’s controversial president — whose tenure was marked by the college’s embrace of wokeness, and shocking tolerance of antisemitism — resigned (while couching the move as a retirement):
The embattled leader has been the target of scorching criticism in recent years from both alumni and major donors who argued she has allowed diversity, equity and inclusion dogma to infiltrate the curricula, has not done enough to stop rampant antisemitism from festering on campus, and quashed intellectual diversity even while declaring Cornell a safe haven for free speech.
Pollack was one of several top-tier college presidents who gained national attention and congressional opprobrium for allowing antisemitic outrages to mar their schools’ campuses. Violent protests and quad occupations came despite — or more appropriately, because of — the heinous murders of over 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023. On the shores of Cayuga Lake, the pro-Hamas madness, bad enough in its own right, compounded the raging political correctness and the administration’s harmful implementation of DEI policies infesting Cornell.
But long before that day of infamy shocked the world, concerned Cornell alumni were voicing public criticism of the school’s leadership. They charged it with preventing free speech and suppressing academic freedom, and threatened to withhold financial support until reform was implemented. In Ithaca, these criticisms came while the school gained troubling attention for ongoing displays of antisemitism. Surely the board would fix these problems, because . . . that is, in part, why boards exist, no?
No. One can’t — or won’t, or is afraid to — fix what one denies is broken, or ignores as broken, or might even argue is an attribute instead of a problem. So despite alumni kvetching, with the backing of the university’s trustees, President Pollack stayed her ideological course.
(She did not appreciate criticism. Reviewing the then-concluded 2022–23 academic year, Pollack “said she finds it ‘incredibly frustrating’ that groups, such as the CFSA” – the independent Cornell Free Speech Alliance – “attack diversity, equity and inclusion principles under the guise of defending free speech, and that she will defend DEI as strongly as she defends free expression,” according to the Cornell Daily Sun.)
Reaction to the October 7 horror – which Cornell history professor Russell Rickford infamously hailed as “exhilarating” – and its aftermath garnered the university increasing negative press, provoked stronger dissent from alumni, prompted donation cut-offs from major donors, and elicited calls for Pollack’s resignation. But while the school’s reputation sank, trustees circled wagons.
Consider their response to former trustee and major benefactor Jon Lindseth. His open letter to the board and the Cornell community called for the resignation of Cornell’s president and provost, and promised a halt to his generosity. To which the trustees declared, in textbook college-board-ese:
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.
Unanimously. Nothing to see here.
Come 2025, having endured — or, having been complicit in — the humiliations of last year, Cornell’s board, and the institution it serves, would have soul-searched. It would have prioritized developing a less-fawning membership by adding voices of loyal alumni who are not averse to being necessarily critical, and who might give the school what it sorely needs: champions of free speech and academic freedom.
That opportunity for such a small-but-reasonable way to restore sanity has arrived, with Cornell’s annual election of alumni trustees.
But: The process for this election is another example of Cornell’s obtuseness, the administration’s fierce objection to dissent, and its unspoken rule for a board that exists to follow rather than lead.
Some background: Per the university’s charter, alumni elect two trustees annually to the bloated, 64-member board. The online voting will take place February 1–28. How does one get to be a candidate? For the upcoming election, Cornell’s Committee on Alumni Trustee Nominations (CATN) has approved four candidates, each bearing the brand-of-approval “Endorsed by the Committee on Alumni Trustee Nominations” – akin to a Favored Nation status.
The elections – including the pathways to becoming a candidate, and rules on electioneering, known in more common parlance as “free speech” – are rigorously stage-managed, micro-managed, and scripted by Cornell’s administration through CATN.
Under the premise “that elections for alumni trustees should be more dignified,” Cornell enforces excruciating rules that leave no room for critiquing the school’s existing leadership or policies, or for a candidate to make the case to concerned graduates why they should vote for him or her:
Cornell prohibits campaign activity of any kind by or on behalf of any candidate. Campaigning includes, but is not restricted to, soliciting endorsements of one’s candidacy, written or oral contact with alumni about one’s candidacy, statements to the press, advertising, posts on social media and other networking technologies, press releases, etc. If publishers of college, unit, class, or club newsletters, e-mails, social media posts, or their like wish to print any candidate information, they must give the same information in the same space for all candidates in that election. Alumni are prohibited from contacting candidates to ask questions or engage in conversation relating to the election. Questions should be directed to Alumni Affairs. Candidates, whether endorsed by CATN or not, will be asked to sign an agreement that reflects the anti-campaigning policy in this paragraph. Failure to sign the agreement may result in elimination from the ballot. Unendorsed candidates are prohibited from campaigning upon the petition closing date through closing of the election. Campaigning for write-in candidates is also prohibited.
So . . . an alumnus who asks, for example, “What, Candidate X, is your view on how Cornell is harmed by its DEI policy?” or, “Candidate Y, did the board make a mistake by unanimously supporting President Pollack last year?” is violating the rules.
(You have an Ivy League degree after all; we assume you can read and comprehend our clear mandate that any “Questions should be directed to Alumni Affairs,” and there only.)
There doesn’t seem much space for nuance or wiggle room: The innocent asking of a question puts the candidate’s candidacy at risk, especially if it prompts a mere courteous response (no “written or oral contact”!) to the inquiry by stating, If I answer, I will be disqualified.
Sounds Orwellian, in the Cornell dialect: Any candidate mentioned or involved in a private communication – written, verbal, maybe even smoke signals – will face immediate disqualification from the election. Actually, Cornell’s intense election gag-rules come off more as a perversion of Miranda (You have the right, nay, the duty, to remain silent) than as guidelines for open and honest debate (or, normal human interaction) that Americans expect and practice before votes are cast for whatever office, whether it be public or institutional.
But some thumbs can be put on the voting scale, as long as they are Cornell’s. CATN – and not the alumni – uses a closed process to hand pick four candidates, and graces each with the favorable imprimatur “Endorsed by the Committee on Alumni Trustee Nominations” on ballots and online profiles. In contrast, clearly unfavorable labelling awaits those Cornell graduates who use a petition process to gain a place on the ballot, courtesy of alumni and not school bureaucrats.
This year, two have. They are Cindy Crawford (M.B.A., ’90), a senior policy counsel at Americans for Prosperity, and J. Kennerly (Ken) Davis, Jr. (A.B., ’68), a corporate lawyer and former assistant attorney general of Virginia who remains very active in the Federalist Society. On paper, they’re not exactly left wingers. Draw your own conclusions as to how they might view the board-overseen mess in which the current administration has placed the university.
The Crawford and Davis candidacy pages on Cornell’s website ensure all know each of the interlopers (neither of whom has spoken to or communicated with, directly or indirectly, this writer) bears the status “Unendorsed candidate; petitioned to be on ballot.”
(Actually, of the six candidates now competing, the two highly qualified “unendorsed” are the only ones to make it onto the ballot because they attracted thousands of petition votes from actual alumni.)
With such absurdity and rigged rules and an institutional bent to brook no potential critics, why seek the trustee position? Crawford explains her candidacy thus:
The challenges Cornell has faced regarding freedom of expression and institutional neutrality are squarely within my professional expertise, which focuses on upholding free speech, and First Amendment rights. The nuances between maximizing protection for expression while guarding against recasting destructive behavior as speech can be difficult to navigate. I have the experience to discern the difference, and the courage to make that distinction.
Those are indeed challenging words for an institution that orchestrates elections by banning free speech and open debate. Crawford added that she found her alma mater was
at a tipping point in which all elite universities, and Cornell in particular, must decide whether they will remain beacons of learning or acquiesce to demands for censorship, conformity, and political activism. It is relatively easy to pay homage to free expression and diversity of thought. But it can be difficult to uphold those values when confronted by aggressive attempts to shout down (or shut down) that support.
Davis – who as an undergrad directly experienced Cornell’s late-’60s descent into campus madness – offered a similar call for protecting free speech at his alma mater:
The development of an effective solution to any problem must be based on a commitment to pursue the truth, to approach the complexity of our world with inquisitive humility, and to pursue solutions to its problems through the iterative application of empirical analysis to identify the most cost-effective practical solution. This approach embraces the open-minded rationalism of the Enlightenment and rejects ideologies that threaten Enlightenment values. It embraces the freedom of thought and speech that defines our humanity and rejects the use of administrative power to force intellectual conformity.
As to the unlevel playing field: William Jacobson, the highly regarded Cornell Law School professor and founder of the respected website Legal Insurrection, takes issues with the CATN’s process. It further harms Cornell by preventing it from getting what the beleaguered institution sorely needs: trustees unafraid to be at odds with the an administration that, despite Pollack’s departure, remains addicted to a doctrine of groupthink and to the prevailing ideology of DEI, and implement it with the board’s full approval:
Designating candidates as endorsed/unendorsed appears to be a way of putting a thumb on the scale, with candidates endorsed by Committee on Alumni Trustee Nominations receiving an advantage. This process of favoring endorsed candidates serves as a mechanism to maintain the status quo, and may make it more difficult for outsiders and independents with dissenting viewpoints from winning election to the Board.
Is the prevailing groupthink of Cornell’s Board of Trustees, and its subservience to an ideology-beholden administration, so tenuous in its unanimity – like the Politburo of 1990 – that it cannot withstand the introduction of one or two unsanctioned members, a tiny 3 percent of the body?
And what of democracy – that thing that famously dies in darkness, that thing which depends on the free and open exchange of ideas? Or what even of mere questions, or the ability (permission required!) to ask them? Do these things – free speech, open debate, inquiring minds, stating positions, questions, answers, unsanctioned emails – keep Cornell’s leadership up at night?
Old Ezra Cornell made his fortune in the telegraph. Maybe one word found on most Western Union missives would best apply to the administrators at the school that bears his name: STOP.