What Did President Kotlikoff Know, and When Did He Know It?

Cornell and its new president are in the Trump administration’s crosshairs for alleged civil rights violations.

C ornell University is a frequent subject of national headlines about DEI controversies and campus antisemitic activism. It is now under righteous attack from a conservative nonprofit pressing a variety of Trump-administration officials to investigate discrimination at the Ivy League school that is said to be “widespread, deliberate, and ongoing.”

A detailed June 26 letter from the America First Policy Institute’s executive general counsel, Jessica Hart Steinmann, and Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief of staff at AFPI’s Center for Litigation, leveled a formal civil rights complaint against Cornell. It was sent to leading administration officials, including Justice Department Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon. It specifies that the prestigious school’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, is culpable for implementing policies that “reflect not just a tolerance for race- and sex-conscious practices but a deliberate, systematic effort to prioritize them.”

AFPI’s complaint — brought under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, as well as under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the False Claims Act — accuses the university of

engaging in a deeply embedded, systemic pattern of discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. What has been reported to us — and confirmed through internal documents, public policies, and archived webpages — reveals a university-wide culture that places an illegal identity-based ideology above equal opportunity and merit, leading to a coercive and hostile environment.

The school’s provost since 2015, Kotlikoff was named Cornell’s interim president in 2024 after the retirement of Martha Pollack. Pollack presided over an institution that gained national attention as a hotbed for disturbing anti-Israeli activism following Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks. This March, the university’s board voted to elevate Kotlikoff, formally naming him the school’s 15th president.

That Kotlikoff is in the crosshairs of conservative higher-ed reformers in no surprise. His long tenure as one of Cornell’s premier administrators is the period in which many of the alleged discriminatory actions underlying AFPI’s complaint occurred, and when “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policy was implemented throughout the institution. (Kotlikoff was also dean of Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine from 2007 to 2015.)

More than a mere coincidence of timing, the complaint charges:

According to reports made to AFPI, internal hiring memos, and our independent analysis of Cornell’s scholarship offerings and public-facing policies, the Office of the Provost, which Mr. Kotlikoff led at the time in question, oversaw a scheme that prioritized race and sex over qualifications in faculty hiring. Additionally, discriminatory awards of student scholarships continue to this day.

This pattern of discrimination has not ended. It persists under Mr. Kotlikoff’s leadership.

This February, Kotlikoff — responding to Trump-administration demands that Cornell end all raced-based programs, including in admissions, hiring, and institutional programming — said the school “follows the law” and has a “commitment to nondiscrimination in communications and our activities.” He also claimed that the school

is committed to merit-based decisions in all of its processes. Just as we do not exclude anyone at Cornell for reasons irrelevant to merit, neither do we admit or evaluate students, hire or promote employees, award chairs or tenure, or make any other merit-driven decisions at Cornell based on race, ethnicity, or other attributes not relevant to merit.

AFPI’s complaint specifically addressed that statement, labeling it “demonstrably false.” More than that: It charges that Cornell’s “institutional policies openly promote identity-based hiring preferences. These practices are not accidental — they are officially sanctioned and operationalized throughout the university.”

Saying it “strictly prohibits unlawful bias or discrimination,” Cornell has publicly responded to AFPI’s complaint:

The university strongly disputes the allegations in the America First Policy Institute complaint that references a number of outdated websites or programs that have not been in use for many years. Over the past year, the university has further enhanced its compliance with civil rights laws by engaging outside law firms to audit policy and practices to reflect changes in law or regulations, taking swift corrective action where necessary.

Among the examples leveled in its complaint, AFPI claims that discrimination is explicit at Weill Cornell Medical School, citing a “‘Faculty Diversity Hiring Incentive Program’ that awarded direct financial bonuses based on the race and ethnicity of faculty hires” — making it an “incentive structure [that] illegally ties funding to racial and ethnic identity.”

After listing several ways in which the school publicly attests to how it emphasizes “identity” in hiring, AFPI’s letter charges that Cornell’s “policies reflect not just a tolerance for race- and sex-conscious practices but a deliberate, systematic effort to prioritize them — an effort made undeniable by internal communications.”

Copies of internal Cornell emails attending the complaint seem to give evidence that the faculty hiring process — which could limit the formal interview process to one preselected candidate — excludes qualified applicants who did not fit the “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) identity profile.

AFPI further charges that “Cornell’s race-, sex-, and ethnicity-based practices . . . have also created a hostile environment that violates the civil rights of students, faculty, and staff who do not share the institutionally favored ideological views.”

The complaint urges officials at the Departments of Justice, Education, and Health and Human Services, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to

investigate the systemic, institution-wide violations of federal civil rights laws at Cornell University and the extent to which these policies have created a discriminatory climate of fear, stigma, and ideological conformity. It is crucial that you take corrective action to restore equal opportunity and legal compliance at every level of the institution.

The DOJ’s Dhillon told the Wall Street Journal that her office “will investigate all serious allegations of identity-based admissions, hiring, and student benefits. . . . Discrimination by American colleges and universities must come to an end. Cornell is no exception to this rule.”

The crises facing Cornell — such as the Trump administration’s announcement in April that it would be freezing $1 billionin federal funding, citing alleged civil rights violations, to the Ithaca, N.Y.–based school — also implicate the seemingly aloof board of trustees. The board has taken little public responsibility for, or corrective action to, the massive reputation hit that has happened on its watch.

(An attempt by two reform candidates to join the board — the university holds annual elections for designated alumni trustees — failed earlier this year in the face of Orwellian rules.)

For example, despite the campus chaos occurring in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks — prompting outrage from major alumni donors — the trustees nevertheless voted unanimously in January 2024 to support then–President Pollack (who announced her retirement shortly thereafter).

The leadership actions, the board’s complacency, and the monopoly viewpoint at Cornell mock the idea (or is it farce?) that there is diversity afoot. The 64-member body includes not one trustee who will stand for traditional practices, against radicalism, or sound the obvious self-preservation note: that the college needs to admit it is more in adherence to progressive doctrines than it is to liberal education.

The challenges mount. The AFPI action, and the Trump administration’s massive freeze on funds, were only the most recent of tests facing the school. For example, a powerful February letter from the Department of Education to Cornell, along with other education institutions, put them on notice that federal officials

will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent. All students are entitled to a school environment free from discrimination. The Department is committed to ensuring those principles are a reality. This letter provides notice of the Department’s existing interpretation of federal law. Additional legal guidance will follow in due course. The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance.

All schools receiving federal financial assistance were warned that within 14 days the DOE would begin “to take appropriate measures to assess compliance with the applicable statutes and regulations based on the understanding embodied in this letter.”

And: Earlier that month, the National Institutes of Health announced federal grants cuts that would cost the school millions of dollars, prompting Cornell to join eleven other universities in a lawsuit to stave off the reductions.

The school’s leadership — given its embrace of DEI and the perceived lack of free speech and academic freedom on campus, its ideological homogeneity, and the tarnishing (many would say self-inflicted) of the Ivy League institution’s once-haughty reputation — has come under public pressure the last few years by the Cornell Free Speech Alliance (CFSA). This voluntary association of concerned alumni has been “advocating for free expression, viewpoint diversity, and academic freedom” in the face of hiring and admissions policies that “value activism over merit, resulting in an outsized importance on politics in every academic discipline.”

In 2024, CFSA issued a strong public document based on whistleblower allegations and evidence that at Cornell, DEI dominates hiring processes and eliminates qualified faculty. The report found that there has been “corruption of the pure sciences,” compelled speech, and “falsehoods regarding the use of DEI statements.” The response was silence.

An understatement: Maybe the school, President Kolitkoff, and Cornell’s uni-voice board of trustees should have listened.

To their detriment, they didn’t.

Given AFPI’s complaint, obviously someone else was.