DEI refuses to DIE. Just look at Cornell's new Center for Racial Justice

Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania might be momentarily off their footing, but far from retreating, the Ivy League Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) agenda is barreling ahead. Cornell University is set to debut its new Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures, committed to enforcing DEI across the faculty, administration and student body. 

The center is designed to be "a permanent, institutionally-supported unit" to tackle "the anti-Black racism" that is apparently "raging" at Cornell, in America, and across the world. Far from looking toward the future, as the name suggests, the center is geared toward cartoonish interpretations of the past, rooting out the "ongoing effects of a settler colonialism underwritten by principles of white supremacy."  

Some proposed initiatives include pushing ideological allies into positions "in all academic units and decision-making bodies," money for DEI grants, required DEI classes, and programs for Ivy League students DEI deems marginalized (based on their skin color, not their income or actual life stories). 

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The new center is the brainchild of aggressive left-wing student activists, who used George Floyd’s death to achieve a list of political demands that were years in the making. Those include establishing an "Alternative Justice Board" to punish fellow students and student organization who run afoul of DEI, university funding for Black racial activist groups, disarming and defunding the campus police, and even firing 40-year Cornell professor David Collum. Collum’s thought crime was tweeting in support of police. Activists wanted him replaced with a black professor. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul joins Cornell University President Martha Pollack for a visit with students at the Center for Jewish Living at Cornell in Ithaca, New York, on Oct. 30, 2023. (Lindsay France/Cornell University)

Cornell President Martha Pollack quickly agreed with many of the demands, instituting an aggressive DEI policy, including an "educational requirement on racism, bias and equity for all Cornell students," a "systematic review of the curriculum" across the entire school to bring studies in line under DEI, mandatory faculty DEI training, an "Anti-Racism Center," and a book club.  

She sent her requests to the faculty senate, which approved most of them. Collum ended up resigning as head of the Chemistry Department, but remained on the faculty. 

"Something has gone very wrong at Cornell," Cornell Law professor and Legal Insurrection blogger William A. Jacobson explained to Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in October. "[E]verything is viewed through race... And so we’ve got a toxic atmosphere," he explained. "But the administration and the Board of Trustees don’t seem to understand what they have created." 

While the flurry of radical activity was initially touted in press releases, the administration went quiet on the new center after the Oct. 7 slaughter of Israeli civilians exposed mass pro-Hamas sympathies in the Ivy League DEI left, including on Cornell’s campus.  

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The last communication devoted to the center is a Sept. 26 press release announcing Professor Jamila Michener’s appointment. Since then, the only mention has been a Dec. 14 article in the student paper describing Michener as the "inaugural director." A Wednesday morning call to the university press office went unreturned. 

But while the American political center may have woken up to the race hate at the center of DEI orthodoxy, Pollack has shown no sign of backing down from her agenda. A student paper profile of the college president published in May assures readers "she will defend DEI as strongly as she defends free expression." 

Michener, for her part, seems more than up to the task of running Cornell’s DEI enforcement. Though a public health policy scholar by trade, every one of her listed published academic works hinges on race.  

Examples of her outside works include a Washington Post piece claiming "systemic racism … pervades nearly every aspect of American life, from policing to health care to employment to housing," and a New York Times piece arguing against drug-testing welfare recipients "jeopardizes our democracy." 

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While the broader public is waking up to the state of higher education and the race hate embedded in DEI, universities are undeterred. In Texas, for example, where DEI was banned from state schools on Jan. 1, administrators merely renamed the programs and shuffled their commissars into different offices. 

That’s not surprising. The violent pro-Hamas protests that have erupted across the country didn’t come from nowhere: they are the expression of an ideological edifice that’s been slowly built over decades, and was underestimated by American elites for just as long.  

Democrat politicians thought the energy could be used for electoral wins while the race hate could be contained, while Republican politicians either thought it was overblown or made excuses for how it wouldn’t be "conservative" to work to dismantle it. 

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Whatever name it’s currently going under (DEI, critical race theory, woke, equity), this hateful and anti-Western ideology is mature. It’s coming up from the students and faculty, it’s coming down from university presidents and their legions of administrators, and it’s past the point of being easily tackled.  

It’s great news that some politicians and major donors have woken up to the threat and even earned a few resignations, but the fight is just beginning. Right now, DEI holds the high ground. 

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