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An Ivy League biology professor is sounding the alarm on how critical race theory curricula is erasing the meaning and even existence of "objective truth" from classrooms and teaching a generation of students to treat the truth "fast and loose."
"We're supposed to be training people like biologists that will become doctors to make us healthier. Mechanical engineers that will build bridges or skyscrapers," associate professor at Cornell University’s School of Integrative Plant Science Randy Wayne told Fox News Digital in a phone interview this month. "And if they are trained on a foundation that there is no truth, nobody wants to be operated on by such a surgeon, or drive over a bridge made by such an engineer."
"And I'm afraid that's just where the universities are going. Training people to treat the truth fast and loose in order to obtain just what you want. And in the case of the universities, what they want is what they call ‘social justice.’ And they're willing to pay to play fast and loose with the truth to get it."
Wayne, a self-described "squeaky wheel" at the Ivy League institution, has been battling critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at the school for the last year and a half, since he first noticed the faculty senate was discussing mandatory critical race theory training for faculty.
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Photo of Dr. Randy Wayne, associate professor, School of Integrative Plant Science Plant Biology Section (Dr. Randy Wayne)
As a scientist and teacher, Wayne said his purpose is to search for truth and teach his students how to search for truth.
"Critical race theory, which is based on the postmodernist assumption that there is no truth, there's no objective truth, it's just a no-starter for me," Wayne said. "You could create any fantasy land you want, it has nothing to do with reality. And, frankly, the way it's used, it causes fear and terror in all the people that are afraid to answer the mantra the way they believe it should be answered."
Wayne was motivated to speak out after reading an essay published by Paul Rossi, a former teacher at the prestigious Grace Church School in New York City. Rossi was among the wave of teachers and parents across the country in 2021 who spoke out against critical race theory in schools, describing it as harmful curriculum that strips students of their individuality and puts focus on their race instead.
Residents of Loudoun County, Virginia, have helped make critical race theory a subject of national conversation in 2021. (REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)
"After the George Floyd killing in 2020, the university decided they had to do something.… They didn't decide how best to handle this. They decided we're going to just mandate CRT founded on the idea that there's no objective truth," Wayne argued.
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Among the initiatives discussed and rolled out by the school in 2020 were creating a mandatory class for students on racism, bias and equity; training police in "anti-racist policing"; launching an Anti-Racism Center and requiring "equity and cultural competency" training for employees, according to an opinion essay Wayne wrote for the College Fix this month.
Wayne emailed Cornell's president, Martha Pollack, and other university leaders on May 25, 2021, arguing against the CRT initiatives and detailing how critical race theorists’ arguments "can neither stand up to rational academic rigor nor change the hearts of people."
The email went unanswered. So Wayne emailed again and again over the past year and a half, but he has only heard "crickets."
"I gave them an opportunity over a year to discuss this issue. And nobody took me up on it. I believe they didn't take me up on it because they have an inability to make a reasoned argument," he said.
Wayne has been deeply inspired by people throughout history who have taken racism head-on by having face-to-face conversations to change hearts. He argued that having human interactions that are motivated by understanding and the "power of love" is the approach he has taken as he tries to end the school's continued embrace of CRT.
Mennen Hall and Campus, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. (Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Within his emails, as well as during his interview with Fox News Digital, Wayne cited a Black man named Daryl Davis, a boogie-woogie pianist who faced racism at the age of 10 in Massachusetts when a crowd lobbed bottles and rocks at him while he was marching in a parade with his Cub Scout pack.
"He asked ‘How can people hate me that don't even know me?’" Wayne recounted of Davis’ story. "And that became a core question in his soul."
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Davis grew up and ultimately took racism head-on, meeting with KKK members and changing their minds on holding hate for people based on skin color.
"He made appointments to meet with members of the Klan. And he sat down one-on-one to talk to them," Wayne said. "He got, at the time, over 200 klansmen to turn in their KKK suits, their robes, and quit the Klan, because they got to know a Black man in a normal human encounter. Face-to-face, heart-to-heart, allowing mistakes and not crucifying anybody for using the wrong word or phrase."
The mandatory CRT training for faculty ultimately did not come to fruition at Cornell, but other initiatives have continued.
During his annual review, Wayne responded to a prompt asking how he has fostered diversity in his capacity as a professor by questioning a school higher-up on establishing a framework of "merit, fairness and equality" in classes as opposed to CRT training. In April, he took the school on again over a line in an LGBTQ resource guide for faculty and staff.
Barnes Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. (Photo by Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
"Gender in Eurocentric cultures is often categorized as binary, i.e., two distinct and opposite categories of men and women, but it’s not so simple," the line in the resource guide read, according to Wayne’s op-ed for the College Fix.
He questioned a provost on which cultures do not see gender as binary. The line was soon removed, notching a victory for Wayne.
Then in June, the professor spoke out publicly when a bust of President Lincoln and a plaque of the Gettysburg Address were removed from the school’s Kroch Library, where the university’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections is located. The display had been in the library since 2013 and disappeared after "someone complained," Wayne said in June.
Cornell told Fox News Digital at the time that the display was "temporary."
Months later, the display still sits empty.
Photo showing Cornell University's Kroch Library, where the school's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections is located. (Dr. Randy Wayne )
Fox News Digital reached out to Cornell's media team this week for comment on Wayne's remarks on CRT and updates on the Lincoln display. A spokesperson for the university directed Fox to a statement from Kroch librarian Elaine L. Westbrooks, who said she "directed the cleaning and return to public exhibition of a bust of Abraham Lincoln, a valuable item in the Cornell Library’s vast permanent collection."
The bust was originally displayed at the Uris Library in 1891 and would be returned to that library after it was put into storage when the Lincoln exhibit in Kroch Library ended in August, according to the statement.
"Cornell proudly possesses an enviable Lincoln collection, including one of the five known copies of the Gettysburg Address in Lincoln’s handwriting, and one of 14 manuscript copies of the 13th Amendment with the original signatures of Lincoln and members of Congress who voted for it. In addition to the Lincoln bust, the university also owns and displays a Lincoln statue in Uris Library," the statement added.
Wayne continued in his comments to Fox News Digital that his fight against CRT is not political, but "100%" comes down to common sense.
As for the future of education amid the embrace of CRT by universities and schools, Wayne hopes the "pendulum will swing back" and quoted lyrics co-written by George Harrison for the song "Hurdy Gurdy Man," which was sung by Scottish musician Donovan.
"When the truth gets buried deep, beneath a thousand years of sleep, time demands a turn-around, and once again the truth is found," the lyrics say.
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"And that's actually what I'm hoping for, by speaking out for, not for my truth, but for people to find their own truth … the importance of truth. Then they'll say 'Okay, it's time for a turn-around,'" Wayne said.
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