As the Faculty Senate prepares to debate proposals addressing new “anti-racism” requirements for students and faculty, four new proposals were made public on Friday for the May 5 meeting.
This debate comes in the wake of the election of Eve DeRosa to succeed Charles Van Loan as Dean of the Faculty. Van Loan was a primary architect of the three task force reports, and DeRosa is a more junior faculty member from the College of Human Ecology. The faculty vote had a 29% voter turnout. The debate also follows a faculty vote that endorsed a new Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures.
Source: https://theuniversityfaculty.cornell.edu/about-2/the-dean/ and https://www.human.cornell.edu/people/edd56
Faculty requirements. Last summer, President Pollack asked the University Faculty to develop “a new set of focusing on the history of race, racism and colonialism in the United States, designed to ensure understanding of how inherited social and historical forces have shaped our society today, and how they affect interactions inside and outside of our classrooms, laboratories and studios.” Pollack said that “All faculty would be expected to participate” but did not phrase it as a requirement. The Dean of the Faculty then appointed a task force that turned it into a requirement and added additional “accountability” provisions such as “Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) statements” to be filed by all faculty seeking contract extensions or tenure and DEI questions added to student course evaluation surveys. Although the Dean of the Faculty called for a general resolution giving a blanket endorsement of the task force report, two substitute motions are now being offered. They surfaced the day after voting closed on electing the next Dean of the Faculty. Either resolution would be a rejection of the DoBetterCornell attempt to make programs on Critical Race Theory (CRT) mandatory for all faculty.
Resolution #1 is sponsored by 14 faculty members. It endorses the task force’s stated goal “to support faculty in creating an antiracist, just and equitable climate for our campus community.” It gives the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (OFDD) and the colleges the task of developing these instructional materials. Since OFDD has already been offering such training on a voluntary basis to faculty, this would be less disruptive than the DoBetterCornell proposals to pay faculty to develop new materials within the context of the proposed Anti-Racism Center. Resolution #1 provides for OFDD and the colleges to evaluate these materials and faculty participation rates.
Resolution #2 goes a step further and would provide a “carrot” for faculty participation. It is sponsored by 17 faculty. It calls for “voluntary participation” by faculty rather than a strict requirement and proposes stated incentives “such as supplemental funding for departments with high levels of faculty participation.”
If either of these resolutions were adopted, that would leave on the drawing board the three task force proposals that drew faculty ire: 1) the DEI question on the student course evaluations, 2) the DEI statement for promotion and tenure and 3) tasking that the Anti-racism Center “must advocate for full BIPOC representation in all academic units and decision-making bodies” without defining “full representation”. In connection with the DEI statement, the outgoing Dean has been in an exchange with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, who submitted this response on Friday.
Student Course. Last summer President Pollack called for “a for-credit, educational requirement on racism, bias and equity for all Cornell students.” This plan started out with a 4-credit class to be taught by the new Anti-Racism Center, but changed to a compromise of 2 credits taught by the center and 2 credits taught in the student’s home college. Later, it became a set of college requirements to pick from a menu of classes that included video training resources developed by departments that study various marginalized groups in society.
The task force report which recommended reliance on high tech instructional resources to supplement college-specific instruction drew such heavy criticism that a “modified” version was posted on May 2. The modified plan was a “requirements framework” to be adopted centrally and then imposed on whatever course the colleges teach as a part of their menu. On the other hand, because a group of six “Department Directors” have come out in favor of a centralized undergraduate survey course team-taught by faculty from all six departments, the modified plan would be willing to accept that as well. So, a vote for the modified task force report is really not taking a position on how anti-racism will be taught or who will teach it, but rather that there will be central control over the “requirements framework” to assure its anti-racist content.
A major motivation for the competing proposals is money, as a proxy for power. A four-credit hour class required of every undergraduate and graduate student would command an estimated $12 million of tuition revenue each year. Placing this revenue stream under the control of the Provost and the new “anti-racism” center would give the center the power to fund far Left political activism at the expense of the colleges that would otherwise be allocated tuition revenue for the variety of classes that they teach. This is awkward because CALS and Arts and Sciences both have recently put into effect distribution requirements for their students that allow them to pick from a menu of classes about understanding human diversity. If a central course is required instead of these college-level requirements, enrollment in many departments would decline.
Six Department Directors have authored an alternative plan to start with a menu of classes and by 2022-23 begin to team-teach a centralized class. Although President Pollack last July listed eight departments as having relevant expertise, the Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies departments have mysteriously been shunted aside, leaving only six departments and centers involved: the Asian American Studies Program, Africana Studies and Research Center, American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program, American Studies Program, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Latino Studies Program. They would reject the idea of leaving the courses up to the colleges. Instead, the Department Directors demand faculty compensation this summer to prepare pilot materials, and the addition of two tenure-track faculty positions to each of the six departments. The Department Directors would defer until later any course requirement for graduate students.
Meanwhile, on May 3, a group of 10 faculty sponsored a resolution that would endorse a required for-credit course requirement, but would leave it to the colleges to implement either through existing courses or new ones.
In sum, the stakes are high at Wednesday’s faculty meeting. It remains to be seen how these proposals would be presented for a vote, and whether intelligent debate can separate policy differences from false accusations of “white supremacy”. A public debate at this stage brings out the important financial questions that would otherwise be hidden in Day Hall. The current procedure brings the DoBetterCornell political attack against the faculty’s tenure protections and academic freedom into the open, rather than leaving activists to lobby and pressure the President privately. Based upon the comments made so far, it does not appear that the original DoBetterCornell proposal could gain majority support from the faculty or from the Cornell community as a whole.
This article was published by a member of the Cornell community who requested to stay anonymous.
