A little over a year ago, Cornell adopted a “land acknowledgment” asserting that the Cayuga people (also called the “Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ people”) used to live where the Ithaca campus is now located and were dispossessed of that land. Few are satisfied with its contents, and many people bristle at the University forcing an inherently political message upon unwilling audiences. The forced repeated recitation of this land acknowledgement is inconsistent with Cornell’s basic goal of teaching students how to think for themselves.
What Happened?
Between 1779 and 1795, the Iroquois Confederacy (which consisted of six tribes, including the Cayuga) were driven out of the area and forced to sell their land to New York State. Most Cayuga people ended up on reservations in Ontario, Canada or in Oklahoma. However, a small group returned to the Finger Lakes area and settled around the town of Seneca Falls, NY. Although the federal government had long recognized the Cayugas in Oklahoma, the small returning group had to fight for, and eventually won, a separate tribe recognition. Unfortunately, the Seneca Falls group has splintered between two leadership factions that have engaged in internal violence in the past few years.
During decades of litigation, the Oklahoma, Ontario and Seneca Falls Cayugas made claims based on their ancestors’ New York land rights, seeking return of the land or monetary compensation. During the 1970-80s, they wanted their land back or compensation for its value. They lost in state and federal court. As a fall-back, during the 1990s-2006 the Seneca Falls Cayugas wanted the right to purchase ancestral land and have it become a new sovereign reservation. They lost in 2006. Now they just want to own land around Seneca Falls, receive tribal federal aid, and be exempt from cigarette tax, property taxes and marijuana regulations. Even if the Cayugas had a favorable history and good current leadership, their argument boils down to “I was here first, but then I left.” Well-established legal principles make such claims unenforceable against the people who hold legal title to the land today. So, Cornell University – along with all other land-owners in America – does not live in fear that their land will be seized by a long-gone tribe. Nation-wide, it was the Federal government that took the land, and Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress exclusive power to enact any changes. If Cornell ever tried unilaterally to “give back” the value of the land, angry donors and employees would sue to block it. So, Cornell launched a land acknowledgement instead.
How was the Land Acknowledgement Adopted?
The text was developed by leaders of the Native American and Indigenous Students at Cornell (NAISAC) and the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP). It was then adopted by the Student Assembly, and the University Assembly based upon a petition signed by 868 Cornellians. In May 2021, Day Hall then adopted the Land Acknowledgement text, seemingly without Trustee approval.
Cornell’s land acknowledgment says, “This land acknowledgment has been reviewed and approved by the traditional Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ leadership.” However, that is a reference to just one (“traditional”) of the two leadership factions in Seneca Falls, and the other faction (led by Clint Halftown), and the larger Cayuga peoples in Ontario or Oklahoma do not appear to have been consulted.
On February 4, 2022, AIISP voted to endorse an addendum to the land acknowledgment on the AIISP website that explicitly notes that “Indigenous lands conveyed to Cornell were acquired by force and fraud in the course of a national genocide.” So, even the faculty group that started the land acknowledgement process is not satisfied with its content. A recent Sun column calls the current land acknowledgement “a lukewarm formality, an excuse for inaction and ignorance.”
Why Focus on just the Cayuga People?
AIISP relies upon the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 for most of its argument. Under that Act, the Federal Government empowered Cornell to select public land from Wisconsin to California to develop or sell in order to establish the University. Over 240 different tribal nations were prior occupants of those lands. So, under AIISP’s reasoning, Cornell should acknowledge a long list of tribes in its land acknowledgement. Of course, the key point is that the federal government took the lands in question from the indigenous peoples long before Cornell was founded. The Cayuga people in question ceded their New York lands in 1794, and the other Western tribes ceded their lands in 1837. Nobody is claiming that Cornell “stole” land from anyone, they are just saying that Cornell received it as an innocent third party much later. Although Cornell is not under any special legal obligation to “make reparations” or to return the lands, if Cornell were to somehow repay the “debt” for the wealth it received under the Morrill Land Grant Act, it would be due to 240 different tribes located in Western states and not to the Cayugas (most of whom now live in Oklahoma or Ontario.)
Getting all of the Emotional Debts on the Table
After decades of court litigation, including a Supreme Court opinion by Ruth Bader Ginsburg ‘54, Indigenous land claims have come to an end, and there will be no money or land returned to the Cayugas or other tribes. Instead, the land acknowledgment is designed to guilt trip Cornellians to be sympathetic to a past wrong without a remedy – to marshal emotional capital.
To do that requires specificity and precision. The AIISP website admonishes, “Land acknowledgments are locally-specific: they should be tailored to reflect where the speaker is physically located.” That is why there should be a separate land acknowledgment written for each Cornell building, so that the full scope of all past injustice can be expressed in a unique way for each place. Here are some suggestions:
Sage Hall – Johnson School:
“We acknowledge that Sage Hall was donated by Henry W. Sage in 1872 to provide suitable housing for Cornell’s female students as its first women’s dorm. We acknowledge that the business community has a history of marginalizing women in the business world and regret that we repurposed this safe-space for women as a business school. We confess that two black students were denied residence here in 1929 on the basis of race. We honor the ongoing connection of Cornell women, past and present, to these lands and buildings. This land acknowledgement has been approved by the Balch Hall leadership.”
Sibley, Rand, Lincoln and Tjaden Halls:
“We acknowledge that these buildings were built with donations intended to support Engineering, and that the Cornell Engineers were driven from the Arts Quad in the 1960s when the Architects, Art, Music, and Drama students stole these lands and buildings. We regret that we repurposed this important central site. By annually marching the Green Dragon to the Engineering Quad we honor the ongoing connection of Cornell Engineers, past and present, to these lands and buildings. This land acknowledgement has been approved by the ChemE Car Project Team leadership.”
Weill, Corson–Mudd, Biotech, and Comstock Halls:
“We acknowledge that these buildings occupy land that the Cornell Trustees promised to the Cornell Athletic Association would be used for athletics “in perpetuity.” Alumni leveled these lands with horse-drawn plows, and the fields then were consecrated with the sweat of student athletes (who did not receive NIL compensation.) We acknowledge that women did not have equal athletic opportunities on these fields. We regret that the open vistas of Lower Alumni Field and Upper Alumni Field have been blocked and that most athletic activity, no matter how heroic, has been banished from these lands and waters (from the sprinkler systems). This land acknowledgement has been approved by the Women’s Ice Hockey leadership.”
Graeme Wood writes in the Atlantic that “Land acknowledgements are just moral exhibitionism.” It may be a trend that is sweeping the Ivy League, but it reflects poorly on each school’s commitment to engaging the minds of students to seek the truth. Rather than launch discussion or debate, land acknowledgements are designed to shut it down by avoiding the federal government’s role in indigenous dispossession and assuming that the value of Cornell’s campus comes from the distant past and not the subsequent development.
In sum, Cornell should respect the intellect of each Cornellian. The university should allow each Cornellian to think independently and reach conclusions after hearing from multiple viewpoints. Mandatory statements, mechanically recited as if prayers at the start of events or on departmental websites will persuade no one. Nor does the current land acknowledgement appease either the AIISP or the advocates of indigenous land claims. There is nothing unique about the Cayuga claims that warrants more acknowledgment than all of the other unremedied claims against Cornell. The 15-month land acknowledgement experiment should be ended.
This article was written by a member of the Cornell community who requested to stay anonymous.
