President Pollack addressing alumni in a reunion tent
On May 30, President Martha Pollack responded to the undergraduate referendum conducted in April.
The Student Assembly Charter provides that any undergraduate can file a petition signed by at least 450 students that would require a vote by all undergraduates on the questions posed in the referendum. At first, the pro-Palestine advocates sought a resolution from the Student Assembly that agreed with their position. At a highly attended Feb. 1 meeting, the Student Assembly rejected the resolution.
As an alternative strategy, the pro-Palestine advocates used the Charter to require an undergraduate-wide vote on two questions:
Question 1: Should Cornell University call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza?
Results: Yes: 5,043 votes, No: 2,074 votes
Question 2: Cornell has investments in companies supporting the ongoing war in Gaza, which has been deemed as a “plausible genocide” by the International Court of Justice in South Africa v. Israel. Should Cornell University follow their 2016 Guidelines for Divestment and divest from the following weapons manufacturers: BAE Systems, Boeing, Elbit Systems, General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp?
Results: Yes: 4,960 votes, No: 2,193 votes
The Charter requires the President to respond to the referenda results, which President Pollack did in a formal statement. Pollack acknowledged the deep feelings surrounding the Gaza War. However, she rejected the idea that “Cornell University” should take a position on the issue of a permanent cease fire. Pollack noted, “[T]he university is not the State Department—we do not espouse a foreign policy.”
In response to the second question, Pollack argued,
“[J]ust as Cornell is not primarily an agent to direct social or political action, but rather a forum for analysis, debate, and the search for truth, the principal purpose of our endowment is not to exercise political or social power. Rather, Cornell’s endowment consists of gifts to the university that are invested to generate money that supports the university’s work in perpetuity, funding mission-directed priorities including financial aid and other student support, faculty salaries and stipends, facilities maintenance and upgrades, academic programs, and research activities.”
The referendum specifically named 10 companies as being “weapons manufacturers.” The referendum text assumed that Cornell invested in them. Learning from Cornell’s divestment debates in the 1970 -1990s, Cornell has stopped holding direct investments in the stock of specific companies. However, Cornell may own a portion of these companies indirectly through its investment in hedge funds or index funds.
So, while undergraduate students have gone on record by expressing their aggregate views on the two questions, their referenda have not resulted in the University officially adopting the same views.
Pollack’s statement echoed the institutional neutrality goals illustrated in the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report. However, she stopped short of officially adopting that document. This week, Harvard University also issued its own Institutional Neutrality Policy after being pressed to take a position on the Gaza issue.
Although President Pollack has announced her retirement effective June 30, the bottom line of her statement was that all of the protests, demonstration and organizing failed to reach their stated goal of getting Cornell to lend its extensive prestige and economic power to advocate for the Pro-Palestine cause.
