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Cornell at a Crossroads: Donor Jon A. Lindseth Calls for Reform in Open Letter to Trustees

Writer's picture: Cornell Free Speech AllianceCornell Free Speech Alliance

A Cornell Trustee Emeritus Urges Leadership Change and a Return to Academic Excellence


Jon A. Lindseth speaks at a university event. Photo via Cornell University instagram account.
Jon A. Lindseth speaks at a university event. Photo via Cornell University instagram account.

The Cornell Free Speech Alliance is publishing this article to amplify an open letter penned by Jon A. Lindseth, a prominent alumnus, trustee emeritus, and donor to Cornell University. His powerful letter, dated January 22, 2024, challenges the university’s current policies surrounding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, calling them detrimental to Cornell’s mission of academic excellence and free inquiry. Lindseth’s words underscore growing concerns among alumni, students, and faculty about the direction of Cornell under its current leadership.


 

Jon A. Lindseth 

Hunting Valley, OH 44022 


January 22, 2024 


Chairman Kraig Kayser and Cornell Board Of Trustees 

Cornell University 

Ithaca, New York 14853 


RE : Open Letter Recommendations To The Cornell University Board of Trustees 


Dear Chairman Kayser and Cornell Board Of Trustees: 


It is with a heavy heart that I outline this request to you today. As a proud Cornell alumnus, donor,  Member of the Board of Trustees (Emeritus), and Counselor to the President, it is my opinion that  Cornell must abandon its misguided commitment to DEI because it has yielded not excellence but  disgrace. 


I am proud to count myself one of several generations of Lindseths who are Cornell alumni and  invested donors, but I am alarmed by the diminished quality of education offered lately by my  alma mater because of its disastrous involvement with DEI policies that have infiltrated every part  of the university. 


President Pollack’s shameful recent response to clear acts of terrorism and antisemitism compared  with her swift and strong response to the George Floyd tragedy demonstrates that Cornell is no  longer concerned with discovering and disseminating knowledge, but rather with adhering to DEI  groupthink policies and racialization. Ezra Cornell famously stated in 1865, “I would found an  institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” Today the instruction Cornell  offers is in DEI groupthink applied to every field of study. The result is a moral decay, some call  it “rot”, that falls in line with prevailing ideology and dishonors basic principles of justice and free  speech. Under President Pollack's leadership the university continues to put more value on DEI’s  broad application rather than merit. This was not how Cornell became one of the country’s leading  institutions and a proud member of the Ivy League. 


President Pollack’s failure to act with conviction and moral clarity was a watershed moment as I  watched the harmful effects of DEI programming play out on a whole generation of Cornellians. 


As with any leading educational institution, the President is ultimately responsible for the culture 

of the university. Under President Pollack’s leadership, antisemitism and general intolerance have  increased on campus. Her lack of leadership in the days following the October 7th massacre is  only one of the many examples of poor leadership and failed policies at Cornell. A new campus  “bias reporting system” fosters a hostile Orwellian environment among neighbors, classmates,  and colleagues reporting on one another. For applicants, the elimination of grades and SAT’s has  created a system in which equal outcomes rather than proven merit has become the objective. This  is disastrous for a research university that is built upon academic achievement and aims to educate  and train some of our country’s leading scientists, architects, and engineers. Undoubtedly these  DEI policies are pushed by the university’s new “Center For Racial Justice and Equitable  Outcomes”. Pollack claims the Center is necessary to counter the promulgation of slavery,  pervasive oppression, and systemic racism which she believes permeates Cornell today. This is  both untrue and a further veering from Cornell’s proper mission.  


Alumni of Cornell have organized to offer support and feedback over the past year, providing  policy recommendations and whistleblower accounts of problematic behavior on campus by  students, faculty and administrators alike. The intent has been to see Cornell’s excellence restored  by a determined rolling back of DEI and the toxic academic environment it creates. The lack of  acknowledgement, responsibility, or accountability from the administration in addressing the  major threats now confronting the University has left me, as one of her appointed counselors, with  the disappointing task of calling for President Martha Pollack’s resignation. Provost Michael  Kotlikoff should also resign for his close involvement in the denigration of Cornell’s academic  legacy under DEI. I’m sure everyone is familiar with “The Peter Principle.” It being people rise in  an organization until they reach their level of incompetence. We have now reached this at Cornell.  

I have requested that these calls for resignation be added to the agenda for our emergency board  meeting on January 26, 2024. I am awaiting a response from the Chairman on this request. 


The failure to address a request for Board engagement in this long overdue discussion about the  future direction of Cornell is another symptom of the moral rot that has infiltrated all of the Ivy  Universities, Cornell included. The Cornell Free Speech Alliance has informed alumni (including  myself) that whistleblower accounts from faculty and students describe unacceptable policies and  conditions now prevailing on campus. Reports have been made of Cornell’s hiring faculty based  on race rather than academic merit (even in the pure sciences) to fulfill their DEI targets for tenure  track positions in specific departments. This violates US law. Instances are reported of qualified  candidates for faculty positions being rejected for their DEI statements alone, thereby screening out faculty candidates based on their personal, religious, and/or political views which are unrelated  to their academic discipline and instructional duties. Cornell Law alumni see such practices as  violations of New York State employment law. I am told that faculty members have been singled  out and disciplined for expressing minority opinions on national events and policy matters.  Repeated failures to support faculty members choosing to exercise free expression and academic 

freedom is unconscionable for a university of Cornell’s stature. Cornell leaders have also failed  to defend the rights of non-conforming speakers invited to campus and instead have fed a cancel  culture on campus where bullying, intolerance, and petulant behavior rule rather than academic  rigor and honest debate.  


While Harvard, Penn, and MIT were the focus of public testimony in the recent US Congressional  hearings, Cornell University is also now under intense national scrutiny. As the subject of three  different US Congressional and Federal investigations, Cornell could lose its university  accreditation, tax exempt status, and governmental funding. It is my belief that President Pollack  would face the same public outcry and demands for resignation as Harvard and Penn had she been  on the stand before Congress in early December. 


President Pollack is responsible for adding a grave insult to injury. Not only has she given the  DEI social engineering experiment equal priority with open inquiry, free expression, and academic  freedom, Cornell removed the treasured and historical bust of Abraham Lincoln along with a copy  of the Gettysburg Address from the Cornell University Library. Apparently a student found this  most highly revered US President to be offensive and requested its removal, which the University  obliged. (I am told it has now been returned.) So even Lincoln could be canceled under the present  administration. This is an absolute disgrace. 


President Pollack and Provost Kotlikoff have allowed their headlong support for DEI policies to  take root at the expense of the four essential pillars of Cornell University: 1) Open Inquiry; 2)  Academic Freedom; 3) Viewpoint Diversity; and 4) Free Expression. This is an inexcusable  violation of their fundamental duty to Cornell. Therefore, they should resign their positions  effective immediately. 


We all see the increasing frustration of Cornell alumni as DEI continues to wreak havoc under  President Pollack's leadership. With my writing of this letter, an increasing number of Cornell  alumni are refusing to continue donating to their alma mater. Unfortunately, President Pollack and  her administration have refused to engage with concerned alumni and their sound policy  recommendations to correct Cornell’s course. With all this as background, I now recommend that the Board of Trustees take the following actions : 


ITEM 1: Replace the President and the Provost. 


ITEM 2: Eliminate DEI staffing and programming. Revert to Open Inquiry, Academic  Freedom, Free Expression, and Viewpoint Diversity on campus. 


ITEM 3; Adopt and Implement “CFSA Open Inquiry Policy Recommendations To Cornell  University” especially the Kalven Report (Political Neutrality) and Chicago Principles (Free  Expression).

ITEM 4: Conform to the SCOTUS decision on elimination of Affirmative Action in  Admissions and the Schils Report (See CFSA Recommendations) to return Cornell to “merit  based” rather than “politically based” or “identity based” hiring and admission preferences. 


ITEM 5: Publish a Cornell Policy Statement (similar to that just proposed at Penn) and a new  Presidential and Provost Declaration, which Cornell’s new leadership will sign before taking  office, that reinstates Open Inquiry, Academic Freedom, Free Expression, and Viewpoint  Diversity at Cornell – while turning away from the current “political activism” priority that  now dominates the University. 


ITEM 6: Terminate Cornell’s use of its current web-based “Bias Reporting System”. 


ITEM 7: Cancel opening of the proposed “Cornell Center for Racial Justice”. There is no racial  justice with DEI. 


I have spent years hearing the stories of Cornell and its leadership, participating as a student, and  sponsoring and funding some of the University’s exemplary past work including the Library  (which I continue to fund). I can no longer make general contributions until the university  reformulates its approach to education by replacing DEI groupthink with the original noble intent  of Cornell. Cornell’s embrace of DEI, as embodied in its new Center for Racial Justice and  Equitable Outcomes, has or will help spawn an oppressive monoculture, inappropriate political  activism, and an environment of fear and intimidation on campus while denigrating the merit based  foundations of our university. Faculty, staff, and students are afraid to express their views for fear of punishment and ostracization from the Administration, faculty, and peers. 


The damage we have seen inflicted upon Cornell’s reputation and academic standing by the current  Administration grieves me and necessitates a truly comprehensive shift in leadership and priorities  to put Cornell back on the path towards academic excellence. As my fellow alumni have witnessed,  accountability is needed to bring a renewed focus on academic achievement. With the help of the  new Ivy Excellence Initiative (a university reform movement recently established by the Common  Sense Society), wide dissemination of this letter is enabling me to share my recommendations and  opinions with my fellow Cornellians and the broader world. Many trustees, alumni, and donors  have been on the sidelines for too long, frustrated by what they have seen happen at Cornell but  unsure of how to get involved. I ask all Cornellians to join me in calling for new leadership and a  roll back of the DEI dogma and monoculture now dominating Cornell. 


President Pollack may signal a shift away from DEI, but the damage is done and she deserves to  be relieved of her duties as were the Presidents of Harvard and Penn. During her tenure, President  Pollack has strongly prioritized Cornell’s ill-fated DEI policy thrust. DEI should never have been  allowed to corrupt an institution that earned its prestige for exemplary academics based on merit.  Cornell desperately needs a cultural shift back to these bedrock principles. Due to the current  policies of Cornell’s administration, Cornell is now one of the only four US universities (Cornell, 

 

Harvard, Penn, and MIT) being investigated by two Committees of the US Congress and by the  US Department Of Education for discrimination, intolerance, and antisemitism on their campusesNo alumnus, student, or faculty member should accept Cornell‘s being in this shameful position.  We need new leadership to correct these intolerable circumstances and to redeem Cornell’s legacy  and honor as soon as possible.  


Cornell deserves better. Every Ivy League university deserves better. This much-needed reform  can be implemented at Cornell – and be an example to the Ivy League and to other leading US  universities. Let us get on with what Cornell must now do. 


Respectfully Yours, 


Jon A. Lindseth 


Member Cornell Board of Trustees (Emeritus),  

Counselor to the President,  

Cornell Alumnus and Donor.


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