Kops Lecture Drifts from Press Freedom to “Land Grab”

The aptly named “The 2022 Kops Lecture on Freedom of the Press” was supposed to be about press freedom, but instead the Sept. 13 lecture featured a professor from Cambridge University and an indigenous American writer who collaborated on a website linking Morrill Act land grants to indigenous dispossession.

In 1990, Daniel W. Kops ‘39 and his wife endowed a lecture series on freedom of the press.  Kops was Editor-in-Chief of the Cornell Daily Sun and later led a Connecticut-based communications company.  The couple’s son, Daniel W. Kops, Jr. ’70  Ph.D ‘82, is also a Cornellian.  The endowment is administered by the Arts College and its American Studies program. 

Freedom of the press is a particularly timely subject because President Trump had declared the mainstream media “the enemy of the people.” Several Presidents have sought to prosecute cases of leaked “state secrets”, and the Biden Administration’s recently proposed Title IX rules that would allow student journalists to be punished for covering Title IX cases.  Also, Congress is proposing to require moderation of social media content and require disclosure of people who fund issue advocacy..

Past Kops lectures included New York Times columnist Tom Wicker, addressing “Privacy in the Age of Media” in 2000; Annenberg School Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson discussing “Advocacy Advertising and the First Amendment” in 1998; Juan González, New York Daily News columnist discussing “How Long Must We Wait? The Struggle for Racial and Ethnic Equality Within the American News Media” in 2004; and Gail Collins, the editorial page editor of The New York Times addressing “How Women Got Their Voice” in 2002.  These talks, from a variety of viewpoints, all addressed the issue of press freedom.

However, this year’s Kops lecturers were Grist Editor-at-Large Tristan Ahtone and Dr. Robert Lee, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, who discussed “the troubled legacy of land-grant universities and their impact on tribal nations”.  Instead of giving a talk related to freedom of the press, they repeated a standard talk that they have delivered across the country promoting their landgrabu.org  website.  They claim that Cornell’s endowment was the result of “grabbing” lands from indigenous tribes.

Although past Kops lectures were held in large auditoriums, this talk was held in the 150-seat lecture room in the Johnson Art Museum with a live-stream of just the talk and not the question and answer session.  The presenters did not explain the reason for cutting off the livestream before the questions. 

Past Kops lectures drew large, lively crowds and included thought-provoking question and answer sessions.  This year, the American Studies Program failed to deliver on its duty to present a relevant discussion of press freedom.  The selection of speakers and a small venue was made without transparency by a few American Studies Program faculty.  Instead of selecting a speaker who would draw a large crowd for a timely discussion of a challenge to free speech, this year’s Kops lecture appears to fund an unrelated topic with no accountability for the endowment donors’ intent.

The essence of Ahtone and Lee’s lecture was the importance of understanding the background of Cornell’s endowment accounts and their intended purposes.  While it is admirable that the American Studies Program wants to fund this talk, the use of the Kops Lecture endowment in this way should raise red flags throughout Cornell and its donor base.

It is ironic that by not addressing freedom of speech, Ahtone and Lee and their faculty hosts demonstrated how the payout of a Cornell endowment fund can be “grabbed” away from its stated purpose.

This article was written by a member of the Cornell community who requested to stay anonymous.