[FULL INTERVIEW] Cornell Daily Sun Interviews Professor William Jacobson on CRT Site

Recently, the Cornell Daily Sun published an article on the student activists’ “reaction” to the Critical Race Training in Education website, created by Professor William A. Jacobson of Cornell Law School, and president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, to give students and parents information on Critical Race Training activities at over 200 colleges and universities in the United States. Professor Jacobson claimed, “The Sun posed 17 questions to me, which I answered in detail spanning almost 2000 words. Very little of it made it into the Sun article, so I am printing the entirety of the written interview at the bottom of this post.” The Daily Sun did not publish its full interview with Professor Jacobson, choosing to quote him selectively.

With the permission of Professor Jacobson, we have published the full-text of the interview below:

What was the inspiration for the database? How was this idea created?

The immediate impetus to create the website was an early-September 2020 Demand List signed by multiple programs and hundreds of faculty, students, alumni, and staff, demanding that implementation of President Pollack’s July 2020 call to “embed anti-racism across” the campus include race-based hiring and promotion, the elimination of colorblind hiring practices, and other race-based practices.

This troubling explicit advocacy of racially discriminatory practices in the name of “anti-racism” did not come out of nowhere. In June 2020, Cornell designated Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be An Antiracist as a Summer Community Book Read. Kendi advocates that “[t]he only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination” and artificially divides the world into “antiracists” and “racists,” with no middle ground allowed for people who are merely not racist. This creates a coercive dynamic of compelled activism and crushing of dissent that is unhealthy to an educational environment.

Whatever President Pollack’s intent in using the term “anti-racism,” it became clear that much of the campus interpreted it as Kendi used it, and that posed a threat to academic freedom and free expression. Looking at this unfold, I was convinced that most parents, alumni, and prospective students had little idea how rapidly events were devolving at Cornell.

It was only after the September Demand List was released that the Legal Insurrection Foundation, of which I am President, decided to take research we had been doing and turn it into a separate website and database to provide an easy platform for parents and students to know what was happening at Cornell and elsewhere.

What is the purpose of your database?

The database is an informational resource for parents and students as to Critical Race Training on campuses, including so-called “anti-racist” training, which sometimes is mandatory, sometimes voluntary. The database is neutral, and just as useful to those who want such training as to those who oppose it.

There is a strong demand for this information, as evidenced by over 1 million page views since launch last week.

Contrary to some media portrayals, we do not advocate avoiding the schools listed or any particular school. As we say on the website: “This is not a list of schools to avoid, it is a database to provide parents and students with information from which they can make informed decisions as to what is best.”

What do you hope to achieve with it? Or what is the main goal?

The main goal is to provide information in an easy format that allows individuals to make decisions as to what is best for them.

How do you define Critical Race Theory? 

Different scholars define Critical Race Theory in a variety of ways, and the field has evolved over the years. Our focus is not an academic debate over Critical Race Theory, but on training and programming that coerces students, faculty, and staff, into adopting a single viewpoint under administrative and social threat, with the attendant damage to campus free expression and academic freedom. That is why we use “training” in the title of the website and database.

What are your thoughts on critical race theory? What are your main criticisms of it?

See prior answers.

How do you feel about it being applied to university anti-racism initiatives?

See below.

What are your thoughts on Cornell’s anti-racism initiatives? Any criticisms? Any praises?

The initiatives are not final and still are subject to Faculty Senate recommendation and then approval by President Pollack. A key factor for me will be the element of coercion and mandate in the final result, including required student curriculum and faculty programming, and the requirement of so-called “anti-racist” activism for promotion and professional advancement. Also worrisome is the possibility of forcing faculty to incorporate these so-called “anti-racist” efforts into their own course curriculum, which is a violation of our academic freedom and imposes an ideological orthodoxy.

The risk is that so-called “anti-racist” training and programming at Cornell will resemble such efforts at some other colleges, where sessions turning into race-shaming and racial kafkatrapping (use of denial of an accusation as proof of the accusation). These trainings exploit and perpetuate racial stereotypes, and individuals are demeaned and held responsible for historical wrongs they didn’t commit based on their skin color. Rather than broadening campus intellectual life, such trainings narrow the scope of acceptable discourse and bully dissidents into silence.

Cornell already has a serious problem with lack of free expression. A survey last year by free speech groups ranked Cornell 40^th out of 55 schools surveyed. Cornell did poorly on student willingness to express viewpoints on campus, especially as to affirmative action. That survey comports with my experience that many students are afraid to express views that go against the campus activists for fear of retribution. Cornell is at risk of making the existing free expression problem substantially worse.

Already, however, staff mandates have been imposed and made part of staff annual reviews and promotion; there is a lack of transparency as to what the mandated training consists of, as those modules are not publicly available as far as I know. Staff are most at risk, and there needs to be greater transparency and protection of differing views.

On Tucker Carlson you said “Anti-racism does not actually mean what people think it means. It actually is very racist,” Could you expand on that statement? What does anti-racism actually mean? How is it racist?

The term “anti-racist” as used by activists is a linguistic sleight of hand and deception. Ibram X. Kendi, the person most identified with the term “anti-racist” and whose book was promoted by Cornell, advocates current discrimination as a remedy for past discrimination. I specifically mentioned that point during the Tucker interview as an explanation for what I meant: “It’s current discrimination in order to remedy past discrimination is the ideology.”  Such “anti-racist” discrimination on the basis of race fits the traditional definition of racism, and is prohibited by applicable federal and state law, and Cornell policy.

The experience at Cornell is bearing out my concerns, with hundreds of faculty, students, and staff demanding race-based hiring and promotion, among other race-based activity, as part of the so-called “anti-racism” initiative. Cornell is heading in the wrong direction, one set in motion by the university itself last summer. Hopefully, the Faculty Senate and ultimately President Pollack will pull back before irreparable harm is done to the university educational environment.

In my view, the answer to racial discrimination is to lessen racial discrimination, not to impose new forms of racial discrimination.

Why is it important for parents to have access to a database like criticalrace.org? Why is it important for students to have access to this information?

The information we link to is public, but it’s not always easy to find. We save parents and students time and effort by putting it all in one place. The massive traffic to the website, over 1 million page views since launch last week, reflects that parents and students want this information.

How do you respond toward concerns that your criticism of CRT and antiracism initiatives may alienate students of color from participating in your securities clinic?

I stand for equal treatment of all people without regard to race, which is consistent with federal and state law and Cornell’s non-discrimination policy. Why would someone object to me taking the same position Cornell already takes on non-discrimination? Additionally, I don’t think we should presume that all people of a certain skin color think alike; I don’t accept that in general or as to Critical Race Training or Kendi-style “anti-racism” training. My criticisms of so-called “anti-racist” training is to affirm the need to treat people as individuals without regard to skin color. My course continues to be oversubscribed, and we regularly have a very diverse student enrollment, so such concerns are misplaced.

What do you see as a better solution for racism in America opposed to using anti-racism initiatives? 

We need to stop dividing people into racial categories and designing initiatives by such group designations. Focus on individual rights, including the right to fair and equal opportunity and treatment. By affirming the dignity of the individual, we will create a positive environment for change, rather than the so-called “anti-racist” construct which pits groups against the other and creates an artificial divide between “anti-racists” and “racists.” I believe that most people fit into neither group, they simply want to treat others with respect without regard to race, and to be treated the same way. We should focus on what we have in common, rather than what separates us.

Do you believe there is a racism problem in America at all? 

Yes, of course racism is a problem and is something we need to continue work to solve.

Do you believe systemic racism is present in America? Why or why not?

I don’t believe that America is systemically racist in the way that term is used by so-called “anti-racist” activists. Our system and laws stand against racism, and that is embedded at almost every level of government and increasingly the rest of society. The goal should be to help this systemic anti-discrimination live up to its promise, not to tear down the system itself or engage in our own retaliatory discrimination.

In 2020, Former President Trump signed an executive order to strip critical race theory training from the government budget, and President Biden has recently revoked this order, what implications does this action have?

My understanding is that Trump eliminated the types of abusive race-shaming tactics in government agency training, including segregating people by race for training purposes, that had been exposed in a series of leaks. The net result of the Trump Executive Order and the Biden revocation of the Order is that we are back to where we were before Trump’s EO.

Did you agree with Trump’s stance of calling the training “un-american”? If you did, do you still believe it is un-american? 

I consider some of the activities of Critical Race Training to be against the best interests of our society and country, by pitting people against each other based on race and creating artificial distinctions that make society less cohesive.

You speak a lot on how universities using antiracist initiatives “indoctrinate” students into leftists ideologies, what exactly do you mean by indoctrinate? How specifically are universities indoctrinating students? 

I distinguish voluntary study from mandates. If a student voluntarily wants to take such courses or engage in such training, that’s fine. I am focused mostly on the administrative mandates that are under consideration at Cornell and have been enacted elsewhere, as well as campus culture, which impose on and force students to adopt a particular viewpoint. This harms campus free expression because it sends a message that only one viewpoint is acceptable.

What are your thoughts on the student effort to disband the CUPD?

CUPD seems to play an important role on campus, so I don’t understand why students would want to disarm or eliminate CUPD, which would decrease security and require outside police agencies to enter campus more frequently.

The publication of this full interview originally appeared in Legal Insurrection which can be accessed here.