Cornell University President Martha Pollack abruptly announced she would resign at the end of June, following months of turmoil on campus.
Therefore, she will be leaving, unless the board uses this opportunity to save the school from the group identity politics that caused the problems and the racial focus she imposed on the campus. The destructive agenda will continue.
Pollack’s sudden resignation is almost certainly a result of the aftermath of October. On Cornell University’s campus, he said, the July 7 crisis occurred, and the school received terrible press coverage, a loss of endowment money, and Congressional scrutiny.
Immediately after the Hamas massacre, support for terrorism exploded on campus under the banner of .decolonization”
A student threatened to shoot and slit the throat of a Jewish student. He is now awaiting sentencing.
One professor said he felt “elated” after hearing about the Hamas attack. This prompted the crowd to begin chanting genocide: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
This violence was repeated over the next several months, including against students at Cornell University’s tent encampment. chanting“There is only one solution: the intifada revolution!”
multiple student testified Before the House Committee on Toxic Atmospheres.
The situation got so bad that Pollack eventually issued a statement saying that calls for genocide violated campus policies.
But at Cornell, no one is willing to say what it is that radicalized the campus against Jews.
To understand Cornell University after October 7. We need to understand the intense and comprehensive race-focused efforts imposed on campus by Pollack in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
I’ve taught at Cornell University for almost 17 years, and I’ve witnessed how Pollack’s race-focused efforts took a devastating turn.
In June 2020, Pollack assigned Ibram X. Kendi’s infamous book How to Be an Antiracist as a campus-wide summer reading suggestion.
Kendi-ism is that you are either with us or against us, you are actively “anti-racist” or racist, there is no middle ground, and present discrimination is past discrimination. We created an atmosphere in which it was necessary to rectify the situation.
In mid-July 2020, Pollack incorporated Kendi’s ideology into campus-wide anti-racism initiatives, including diversity, equity, and inclusion training and coursework for students, staff, and even faculty. It also included plans to make it compulsory.
DEI academic officials could be promoted to Pollack’s leadership team and then become provost.
I raised my voice I opposed this forced campus activity and expected students to turn against each other, but the administration ignored me.
The teachers union’s September 2020 list of demands calls for Pollack’s initiative to include hiring preferences for non-white people.
Although Pollack did not mention Israel in his initiative, his request calls for a reconsideration of Cornell University’s relationship with Israel’s Technion newspaper, and that the anti-racism initiative It shows how it was used.
Since then, DEI efforts centered around race and group identity have permeated nearly every aspect of campus.
Decolonization has become a religion on campus;land approval” — a statement acknowledging the campus’s location on the traditional homeland of the Cayuga people — became the campus liturgy.
The racialization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a common tactic elsewhere, but it has metastasized on Cornell’s campus, erupting violently after October 7th.
It is now common for anti-Israel groups at Cornell University to form a coalition of “students of color” against Israel and attempt to portray Israel as a common white enemy.
Decolonization rhetoric has permeated the anti-Israel movement, including encampments that still exist in key areas as of this writing.
Adding a module on anti-Semitism to the DEI agenda, as Pollack proposed after the campus unrest, is not the answer.
What is needed is to eliminate the focus on group identity.
They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Cornell University needs to stop her DEI madness. It’s making the situation even worse.
Schools need to refocus on the inherent dignity of individuals, regardless of race or other group identities.
The July 2020 DEI initiative was a huge mistake that cannot be tweaked.
It is necessary to remove it completely, remove the roots and branches.
William A. Jacobson is a professor of clinical law at Cornell University. equal protection project.
