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Cornell President Martha Pollack Resigning

Cornell President Martha Pollack Resigning

Pollack has been under pressure for her handling of antisemitism and anti-Israel protests on campus.

Cornell’s President Martha Pollack announced that she is resigning as of June 30, the end of the current fiscal year. The Board of Trustees issued a statement praising her.

Here is my Statement:

“Martha Pollack was the architect of Cornell’s disastrous race-focused DEI initiative that balkanized the campus, and inevitably led to targeting of Jewish and pro-Israel students. While I wish her well in her personal life, it is time for the Cornell Trustees to turn the ship around, to eliminate DEI programming as is taking place elsewhere, and to refocus the campus on the inherent dignity of each individual without regard to group-identity.”

MORE TO FOLLOW

My cricitism of the DEI agenda is not new. On October 20, 2023, as antisemitic threats spread on campus, I issued My Call To Action For The Cornell Board of Trustees:

… The campus has become balkanized by an aggressive focus on racial, ethnic, religious, gender, and other identities through an “anti-racist” and “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” agenda imposed on the campus by the senior administration. The “anti-racism” initiative was launched in the summer of 2020, and has included or is moving towards mandatory training, education, and programming that forces everyone to view their lives and relationships through their identities.

Almost everything now is viewed through an identity lens, pitting groups against each other, pitting colleagues against one another, and pitting students against their peers. There is substantial evidence that such DEI programming makes race and other relations worse, not better. We are seeing that play out in real time in the Cornell community.

This has led to an unhealthy environment at Cornell in which multiple surveys show that high percentages of students are afraid to express their viewpoints. DEI as practiced at Cornell is damaging to freedom of expression, and makes the current year of free expression theme on campus inconsequential, if not nearly satirical.

This DEI-infused world, at Cornell and many other campuses, also leads to the inaccurate demonization of Israel as a white oppressor colonialist entity unworthy of existence. Since a substantial majority of Jews view Israel as central to their own identity, this marginalizes and leads to the targeting of Jewish students. As a former DEI director at another university recently wrote, DEI drives campus antisemitism. For many Jewish students, the “inclusion” agenda has become exclusion. It is in such a campus culture at Cornell and elsewhere that feeling “exhilarated” at the bloodthirsty Hamas attack thrives.

This toxic campus culture cannot be cured by the current administration, which has contributed to the failure. The entire campus DEI program and agenda needs to be revisited, reworked, or removed.

I call upon the Cornell Board of Trustees at its meeting this weekend to: (1) pause all new administrative DEI initiatives for the remainder of this academic year, until the Board can consider permanent changes, (2) adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism, and (3) form a special independent commission to investigate antisemitism on campus and the negative effects of DEI, comprised of dissenting voices among faculty, students, staff, and alumni, to make recommendations to the Board for corrective action. This cannot be an exercise in public relations or a cosmetic repackaging of the current policies.

Cornell can be better, but it will take urgent and serious Board action to turn this ship around.

ADDED

The NY Post wrote about the resignation, and quoted me:

“Cornell has been a campus in turmoil, seemingly rudderless in the face of growing antisemitism fed by hyper-aggressive anti-Israel activism, including an encampment that remains in the main quad,” said Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson, founder of the right-leaning EqualProtect.org.

“The Board also needs to introduce diversity of viewpoint among the faculty, which has become a monoculture and echo chamber of far left ideology, with almost no dissenting voices left,” he said.

Fox News also quoted me:

Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson, who is also president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation and founder of EqualProtect.org, told Fox News Digital that people typically retire because they are aging out of their role or coming toward the end of their term. He also said when someone retires, you typically expect more than two months’ notice, though he was not privy of knowing whether she submitted her resignation to the Board of Trustees much earlier.

Jacobson added that he’s also not privy to Pollack’s interactions with the trustees, though what he could say was she has been under “tremendous” pressure over the rising antisemitism on campus.

“My personal belief is that this is related to what has happened since October 7th, which is that the university has come under severe criticism for how it handled antisemitism on campus,” Jacobson said, explaining the school has been the subject of a congressional inquiry and negative publicity over incidents on campus.

“There have been very aggressive protests on campus that she has tried to get a handle on without success, such as anti-Israel students in groups marching through academic buildings with bullhorns, chanting anti-Israel slogans and genocidal slogans against Jews. There is an encampment now that has persisted long beyond what has persisted on other campuses. So, this is a president, who by all appearances, is a nice person, but who is not equipped to address the aggressive campus events that took place, really starting on Oct. 7,” Jacobson continued….

Jacobson has been critical of Cornell’s DEI program for a number of years.

In October 2023, he called on the school’s board of trustees to act after a series of antisemitic and anti-Israel incidents left Jewish students feeling uncomfortable and unsafe on campus.

At the time, he called on the trustees to pause new DEI initiatives, adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism and form a special independent commission to investigate antisemitism on campus, which he argued was among the effects of the school’s DEI programs.

Jacobson said Thursday he never heard back from the trustees on his request.

Fox News Digital also reached out to the trustees for comment on the requests, as well as Pollack’s retirement, but was deferred to the university’s publicly released statements.

Jacobson said he is calling for the trustees to do away with DEI programming and refocus the activities of the professional staff of the university away from group identity and toward the dignity of every individual without regard to race or other identities.

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Comments

retiredcantbefired | May 9, 2024 at 1:40 pm

Minouche Shafik next.

DaveGinOly | May 9, 2024 at 1:47 pm

Awesome, Professor. That’s what Bill O’Reilly used to call a “pithy comment.”

Is this right-wing misogyny, or is it still impossible to define “woman” without a degree in biology? I want to make sure that I have the correct slogans when I start rioting over this.

AF_Chief_Master_Sgt | May 9, 2024 at 1:51 pm

Another failed female President. Seems that a pattern is emerging amongst the “elite” universities.

But her privilege will ensure she has a soft landing.

    artichoke in reply to AF_Chief_Master_Sgt. | May 9, 2024 at 2:49 pm

    She has an actual record of legitimate scholarship, like the MIT president also does, and unlike the rest we’ve seen. She is fully legitimate in “returning to the faculty” (except she was at Michigan before) as a professor of, I think, computer science.

      ThePrimordialOrderedPair in reply to artichoke. | May 9, 2024 at 3:17 pm

      It appears that she has been more of an administrator than a working scientist for the bulk of her academic career. I looked at her publication record and it seems particularly unimpressive. I couldn’t get most of the actual papers (and was restricted to the abstracts) but I didn’t see anything that indicated any of it was more than just busywork. She wrote in 1990, what looked like a doozy of a paper whining about the lack of women in science:

      Becoming a computer scientist

      […]

      The underrepresentation of women in computer science is alarming for at least two reasons. First, it raises the disturbing possibility that the field of computer science functions in ways that prevent or hinder women from becoming part of it. If this is so, those in the discipline need to evaluate their practices to ensure that fair and equal treatment is being provided to all potential and current computer scientists. Practices that exclude women are not only unethical, but they are likely to thwart the discipline’s progress, as potential contributors to the field are discouraged from participation.

      Like I said … busywork – and shrieky busywork, at that.

        More often it is choice over hindrance for selection of STEM. Women have been notable in computer science. Also, check out authorship. Often a tag along. Being true lead or solo author needs to be checked. Often STEM means longer hours of work which may not suit a lifestyle. Some things can’t be phoned in.

          another_ed in reply to alaskabob. | May 9, 2024 at 11:34 pm

          I chuckled at the “underrepresentation of women in computer science” comment. I studied Computer Science in evening classes while working in industry during the day in the late 1980s. The faculty was well represented by very competent, qualified females but the female students were sparse. Yes, the hours required were long. Since then, the H1B Visa program and outsourcing overseas has adversely affected the demand for local programmers driving down the wages. Telling someone newly unemployed to “learn to code” is a cruel joke.

        That is reminiscent of Big Mike’s Princeton graduation thesis.

        BierceAmbrose in reply to ThePrimordialOrderedPair. | May 9, 2024 at 11:46 pm

        Good god. People tend to write in code and prose similarly. I hope she never wrote something will use.

        Oh, right. CS, academic. Never mind. We’re safe.

Professor, a very elegant statement on your part. For me to put it as gracefully as I can…Martha don’t let the door knob hit you where the Good Lord split you.

UCLA, Northwestern, Columbia, Rutgers etc all need regime change.

G. de La Hoya | May 9, 2024 at 2:08 pm

Couple of weird looking chicks in that photo. I always thought Zuckerburg was robotic until I saw Hochul speak, scary. Wonder if the Left will ever realize that most of us just want to be left alone.

    fscarn in reply to G. de La Hoya. | May 9, 2024 at 2:34 pm

    The left will NEVER leave us alone.

    “It is the common fate of the indolent [*] to see their rights become a prey to the active [**]. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude [***] is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” John Philpot Curran (1750- 1817).

    In other words, you better fight-&-defend or all those hard-earned rights will be taken without a moment’s notice. And as recent evidence, look at how governors and their staffs acted during the COVID-19 lockdown. You can “Let George Do It” (a post-WWII detective radio show), but what if George has no intent of doing it?

    * The indolent – those who may complain but yet won’t take action

    ** The active – experience has taught that the left has a never-ending list of stupid, freedom-depriving ideas; the left will NEVER leave us alone. Green New Deal; elimination of 1st Am., 2d Am., mail-in voting, shut-down orders, and on and on

    *** Servitude – comes in a variety of forms, from detention (jail, stay-at-home orders) to economic deprivation via regulations (which always result in bigger government, higher prices for goods/services and greater unemployment) to increased taxation

      gibbie in reply to fscarn. | May 9, 2024 at 4:41 pm

      Parents have been indolent and have failed to be vigilant regarding the welfare of their children. And “the active” have corrupted them into servitude to evil.

      G. de La Hoya in reply to fscarn. | May 10, 2024 at 7:05 am

      Yes, I know the Left will never be satisfied until all individual freedoms and liberties are destroyed.
      Thanks for the Old Time Radio shout-out. I listen to a lot of old radio shows while I’m carving my harvested venison from “My” hills that Maxine Waters is afraid of :-). “My” hills that I have sweated, bled, and paid for.

    LeftWingLock in reply to G. de La Hoya. | May 9, 2024 at 3:09 pm

    And the left would care what you want why?

    henrybowman in reply to G. de La Hoya. | May 9, 2024 at 4:25 pm

    Zuck is more lizard, Hochul is more botox.

    stevewhitemd in reply to G. de La Hoya. | May 9, 2024 at 9:58 pm

    Of course they realize it. That’s why they won’t…

Good, she failed to enforce the rules and she lost control of the campus. At the beginning of this garbage, take the first few who harass people, damage property and interfere with other students and EXPEL THEM. It will only take a couple and the garbage will die down due to simple self interest.

    diver64 in reply to Ironclaw. | May 9, 2024 at 4:34 pm

    Yes but it took 6 months to get rid of her.

    henrybowman in reply to Ironclaw. | May 9, 2024 at 4:38 pm

    In the ’50s, the reaction time for sanity to reassert itself in this fashion would have been within 48 hours. This has taken more than 48 months.

    gibbie in reply to Ironclaw. | May 9, 2024 at 4:44 pm

    Normally you would be correct, but the left is willing to escalate to bloodshed.

      henrybowman in reply to gibbie. | May 10, 2024 at 2:10 pm

      The bloodshed is inevitable. The question is, do you want to snip off the mole while it’s still small, or wait for it to spread?

Let there be a domino effect that spreads across the DEI bow.

Mauiobserver | May 9, 2024 at 2:31 pm

Small steps to sanity.

ChrisPeters | May 9, 2024 at 2:50 pm

Good Riddance!!!

Let’s just hope and pray she is not replaced with another Leftist.

Can we get rid of affirmative action, for all reasons and on every level? I would like the emphasis for all positions to be competence, as best the employer can define it.

    JohnSmith100 in reply to Valerie. | May 9, 2024 at 5:57 pm

    There has been a glimmer of hope. Purge all Affirmative and other racist programs, departments and staff.

Perhaps Hamas will provide to the Board a short list of terrorist-friendly academics to be considered for President. Otherwise, it might appear that the Cornell Board is complicit in genocide, and we wouldn’t want that.

The Trustees have the legal responsibility to govern institutions like Cornell, but it’s the tenured faculty, collectively, who call the shots and shape the atmosphere at colleges and universities. Spineless careerists in the administrations follow the faculty’s lead. The moral and intellectual rot at these institutions reflect the prevailing assumptions in the faculty lounges, and good luck changing those. So, by all means, get rid of the president, as they have at a few other universities. It looks good. Cornell will eventually name the next captain on the continuing voyage of this Titanic. This ship’s heading won’t change. Steady as she goes.

NorthernNewYorker | May 9, 2024 at 4:14 pm

She weren’t no Frank HT Rhodes, fer sure. Frankie cleared out those divestment protesters back in ’86 saying shantytown was a fire hazard.

MoeHowardwasright | May 9, 2024 at 4:17 pm

What we are seeing live over the past few years is the culmination of the 60’s/70’s demonstrations/ riots. Those past protesters are now the tenured left wing/marxist professors. Who have indoctrinated 3 generations. It was already starting when I left the military in 1980. I took a look around and decided against college. I worked hard and rose up through the ranks into management in the medical gas /device field. We have to tear it down to the studs and re-build the “house” of education. It’s going to take 3 generations if we are successful to rid academia of these a$&holes. FJB

Ghostrider | May 9, 2024 at 4:22 pm

Why not Bill Jacobson for Cornell’s next president?

All of these woke diversity hire progressive women will be the death of our country. University Presidents, Mayor’s, police chiefs, Congress, DA’s. Name a successful one other than that lady over in Pomona that dropped the hammer on those larpers.

    Owego in reply to diver64. | May 10, 2024 at 9:27 am

    There’s much to that. There is a great void in the character, the mores, of these people. They appear to view the technical details of their job as mere managerial or high-end specialized clerical work that can be relegated and shuffled off to others while they go about the business of tearing down the world around them for no other reason than that they don’t like something or someone.

    During the last years of my working life few things annoyed me more than the celebrated “think outside to box” crowd. When pressed, very few of them had any idea why the things that were in the box were there to begin with, that they had frequently wound up there as the result of hard work or hard lessons learned.

    Male, female, straight, gay, young, old, white, black, or by any other shallow surface measure or checked box, the country needs to rid itself of these people.

    Now do Mary Barra; get her out of GM and off the board at Disney.

    Survivor's Son in reply to diver64. | May 10, 2024 at 1:58 pm

    Hiring women is not the issue. It is the lack of diversity of thought, and the resulting lack of engaged, honest and civil debate on university campuses.

BigRosieGreenbaum | May 9, 2024 at 5:11 pm

Bye Felicia; now get on your broom and fly!

I do not support adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism.

For example, if someone says that the area formerly known as the British Mandate should be only one county, controlled by popular vote, it is an opinion that others will either agree or disagree with. The statement should not be banned.

If the above position is banned, it is likely that saying a man who is pretending to be a woman is mentally ill would get the speaker in trouble.

I want to be able to identify someone who is mentally ill and say the person should be treated for their illness.

Policing “hate speech” is tricky.

    Survivor's Son in reply to ParkRidgeIL. | May 10, 2024 at 1:48 pm

    Your analogy creates a false comparison. You’re totally missing the point of the IHRA definition. Israel is the only Jewish state in the world. At the time it was formed, Israel did not move Arabs out of its country. They left at the behest of surrounding counties who declared war on Israel, and told those who left that they could return after Israel was conquered (and we know how that turned out). Those who left became refugees and have been forsaken and used as pawns for years by the Arab countries surrounding Israel. Israel and Jews want the right to self determination, just as Islamic states around it want the right to self determination. To say that Israel should not exist or that it should be eliminated violently (as many terrorist groups like Hamas, and now protesters on campus are advocating) is to say that only Jews do not have the right to self determination. That is antisemitism and is the essence of the IHRA definition.

Here’s a thought: maybe you should try a white male to run an Ivy League school.

drsamherman | May 9, 2024 at 9:17 pm

A university President’s #1 job is to raise money, period. It’s not to run the university—that’s what the Provost, all of those assorted VPs and others do. Presidents/Chancellors raise cash from whatever source it might be—state, fed, private, big donors, whoever. I suspect part of Marty P’s departure is related to declining revenue from donor and government research sources, or a combo of both. Lots of industries still haven’t recovered from the WuFlu, state/fed are cutting back because of deficits and potential students are choosing other paths. Add into that big donors disgusted with antisemitism while DEI Marty sits on her CRT throne dithering and doddering. And 99% of the time, a President leaving was not their individual choice—it was made for them by their board.

Where the hell did all the White guys go

Survivor's Son | May 10, 2024 at 1:23 pm

While DEI may have exacerbated antisemitism, the demonizing of Israel has been brewing on campuses for at least 40 years with faculty often being the driving force. The advent of colonialism and intersectionality being taught on campuses, where everything is looked at through the lens of oppressor and the oppressed, has been the real accelerator of BDS and antisemitism. Although Jews have been oppressed for millennia, the teaching of colonialism has been used to turn Jews into Colonial-settlers in their own land and turned the oppressed into the oppressor. This has been used by BDS effectively and accelerated antisemitism on and off campus. And faculty use this to indoctrinate students to hate Israel and Jews. One of the faculty at my alma mate, who identifies as Jewish, recently claimed that Zionism is equivalent to Nazism, and he teaches the only course at that college on the

Survivor's Son | May 10, 2024 at 1:25 pm

the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even sadder, the indoctrination is occurring before students ever get to college.