Once again, Cornell is the subject of scrutiny over a story in the College Fix about the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ (CALS) School of Integrated Plant Sciences (SIPS) and its Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council. While some commentators are focused on a new SIPS DEI vision statement, they are not addressing the equally visible affirmative action policies.
For context, in 2020, CALS asked all its units to establish DEI councils and to write statements. The present controversy arose from the 2021 “vision statement” of the SIPS DEI Council:
The Council’s vision … recognizes that our institution was founded on and perpetuates various injustices. These include settler colonialism, indigenous dispossession, slavery, racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, antisemitism, and ableism.
This also appears in the SIPS’ 2021 and 2022 annual reports.
Critics of this symbolic move, including Associate Professor Randy Wayne and alumnus Carl Neuss ‘76, challenged the SIPS statement.
Wayne questions the accuracy and veracity of the vision statement and will meet with Chelsea Specht, Associate CALS D&I Dean, to discuss his concerns. Importantly, Cornell is engaging with Wayne and recognizing his freedom of speech and academic freedom rather than “canceling” him for raising the issue. The College Fix article quotes Specht as saying the discussion will be about “shared values that are not about fact or fiction, true or false.”
In response, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley wrote on his website, “The suggestion that the academics move beyond ‘fact or fiction, true or false’ is rather curious since the statement makes an affirmative and shocking series of accusations.”
But some critics have gone even further, arguing that the SIPS statement challenges Cornell’s founding principles. Alumnus Carl Neuss ‘76 is also quoted extensively in the College Fix article. He is concerned that posting the DEI Council statement on the SIPS website, is replaces Cornell’s “founding principle” of “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”
(Slide from the Carl Neuss / Randy Wayne webinar)
Other departments at Cornell have avoided this problem by not alleging fault in the university’s founding. For example, the Neurobiology and Behavior DEI statement says:
We recognize the necessity to combat and overcome the consequences of centuries of systemic discrimination, which have had a strong negative impact on underrepresented minorities and other disadvantaged individuals, including LGBTQIA, individuals with disabilities, and DACA students. This discrimination has occurred broadly, including in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
The university’s detractors make two important mistakes.
In 2019, Cornell reaffirmed the importance of its award-winning “any person … any study” motto. In a broad-based effort to develop a mission statement and core values for the university, the motto remains at the core of Cornell’s “founding principle.” Nobody is advocating replacing this with any DEI statement.
Secondly, while many in the media are preoccupied with statements, SIPS practices affirmative action in hiring and admissions. The DEI Council promises to “[a]ssist in implementing holistic admissions and recruitment best practices, and curate and communicate data on outcomes.”
The media should be focused on SIPS’ actions, such as its preference for select demographic groups from select areas of the country to the detriment of people from New York and other areas that did not historically segregate their land-grant colleges. This program specifically brings in only eight fellows from only minority backgrounds.
In 2020-21, the Cornell Faculty Senate held an extended debate on mandating anti-racism training and DEI statements from individual faculty. Without reaching a firm conclusion, Cornell punted these problems down to the colleges and departments, where decisions can be made without transparency.
University-wide DEI policies are carefully tied to Cornell’s founding principle. The policies assert that Cornell has always advanced DEI ideals. The contradictions between the SIPS “vision statement” and these central messages would leave any job applicant frustrated and wondering if SIPS can hire in a fair manner based upon merit rather than political outlook. Opening a discussion on the factual claims made in the “vision statement” might be a good first step, but will the conversation expand to an honest discussion about what is really troubling the community?
Although Cornell has once again earned national attention, this current dispute is really a tempest in a teapot and does not address Cornell’s university-level policies including the role of DEI at the university.
This article was written by a member of the Cornell community who requested to stay anonymous.
