What Happened to Cornell?

I long for a place that no longer exists.

Photo Credit: The Ithaca Voice

I remember the first time I set foot on the Arts Quad — the cold Ithaca wind, the chimes echoing from McGraw Tower, the quiet intensity of students rushing between classes, notebooks tucked under arms and ideas bursting in their minds. Cornell was always a place that challenged me — intellectually, personally, morally. It was a place that stood for rigor, openness, and a restless pursuit of truth. And it gave me more than an education; it gave me the conviction that serious people could disagree honorably, learn from one another, and emerge better for it.

That is why it breaks my heart to say this: the Cornell I knew is slipping away.

Over the past decade, and especially in the wake of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, I have watched with growing concern as Cornell has struggled — and, in too many cases, failed — to uphold its commitments to academic freedom, pluralism, and moral clarity.

What disturbed me most in those early days after the attack was not just the silence from parts of the campus, but the equivocation — the suggestion from some corners that terrorism could be interpreted, even celebrated, through the lens of resistance. That this view could be expressed by Cornell faculty and tolerated within the university community was unthinkable to me as a student. Now, it feels dangerously normalized.

I’ve spent the past several months speaking with current students, professors, and fellow alumni. I wish I could say these were isolated incidents. But they are not. What’s happening at Cornell is part of a broader drift — a shift in the university’s intellectual culture away from merit, open inquiry, and individual dignity, and toward a rigid ideological orthodoxy that divides the world into binaries of victim and oppressor.

This worldview is entrenched in many of the university’s programs and departments, reinforced by administrative offices that now wield outsized influence over academic and student life. The Department of Inclusion and Belonging, for instance, is meant to ensure that every student feels welcome and valued — a noble mission. But in practice, many students and faculty tell me it has become a gatekeeper of acceptable thought, where identity often counts more than ideas, and where disagreement is recast as harm.

In this framework, Jews, Asians, and others are sometimes viewed not as individuals, but as members of “dominant” groups who must be re-educated or sidelined. A Cornell professor's public praise of the Hamas attack as “exhilarating” — and the university’s unwillingness to impose serious consequences — did not happen in a vacuum. It happened in a context where ideological loyalty has quietly come to matter more than moral responsibility.

The consequences have been real. Jewish students have faced threats and intimidation so severe that the FBI had to step in. Several student groups remain active on campus after endorsing rhetoric that openly demonizes Israel and its supporters. And all of this takes place under a veneer of “viewpoint diversity,” as if calling for the annihilation of an entire nation were simply another perspective in the marketplace of ideas.

Cornell has long claimed to be a place where “any person can find instruction in any study.” But if that principle is to mean anything today, it must include the person who dissents — who thinks differently, believes differently, or comes from a background not currently in vogue. Instead, those individuals are increasingly silenced, sidelined, or shamed.

We’ve also seen how identity politics has reshaped admissions and hiring. Talent and academic promise used to be the criteria by which we judged readiness for Cornell. Now, DEI frameworks are often used to engineer specific outcomes based on race or identity — even if that means lowering academic standards or introducing bias into faculty recruitment.

The university I knew would never have accepted that as progress.

Cornell’s leadership appears hesitant to confront these trends. There’s a palpable defensiveness — a reluctance to acknowledge the damage being done to the university’s mission and reputation. Federal investigations into antisemitism on campus are not the result of political vendettas; they’re a response to real failures. And yet the university’s response has often been to deflect, deny, or delay.

I don’t write this because I want to attack Cornell. I write it because I care — because I love this institution, and I believe it can be better. But for that to happen, Cornell must change course.

It must recommit to academic excellence and the free exchange of ideas, even — especially — when they are uncomfortable. It must ensure that its diversity efforts are rooted in fairness and unity, not division and grievance. It must protect all its students, including those who are Jewish, Israeli, or politically out of step with prevailing norms. And it must do the hard work of introspection — asking not what the loudest activists demand, but what the university’s highest ideals require.

This isn’t a partisan issue. It’s not about left or right. It’s about truth, freedom, and the kind of moral seriousness that a great university must embody. If Cornell can find its way back to those values, it can once again be a place of deep learning and true belonging. But the time to act is now — before the damage becomes irreversible.

I want to believe that the Cornell I once knew still exists, buried beneath the noise and confusion of the present moment. I hope the university has the courage to find it again.

— A Concerned Alumna