In his Oct. 19 "State of the University Address," President Hunter R. Rawlings III speaks in glowing terms of academic freedom and diversity at Cornell and quotes Carl Becker that a great university includes "otherwise-thinking men [and women]."


Well, here's an otherwise-thought: Cornell's diversity is pretty much limited to the politically correct variety. And as for academic freedom, it works fine for those who have the right ideas to begin with. Those who have the wrong ideas don't have much academic freedom at Cornell, for they never get hired. Like most of America's top universities, Cornell over the past 30 to 40 years has come to be dominated by a liberal elite who have almost no interest in students being exposed to the broad diversity of social and political ideas that actually exist in America today.


Consider the following:


1. As far as I know Prof. Jeremy Rabkin is the only conservative out of 34 faculty in Cornell's government department.


2. Diversity in the department of Collective Bargaining, Labor Law and Labor History in I&LR falls roughly within the range one might expect of the left wing of the Democratic Party. A remarkable achievement when you recall that Republicans as well as Democrats must pay taxes to cover faculty salaries.


3. Another opportunistic use of tax dollars can be found in the College of Human Ecology where the department of Human Development and Family Studies appears to have virtually zero interest in exposing students to diverse ideas about controversial social issues like abortion, marriage, divorce, homosexuality, euthanasia, child nurture, etc. Eight years ago, rather than acting on pleas for greater diversity, the administration resorted to caricaturing students and me as right wing extremists when we approached them about seeking out faculty who could contribute more conservative social and political views.


4. Need I speak at all about the lack of anything but politically correct diversity in Cornell's Law School? To do so seems fatuous.


5. Cornell has almost totally excluded normative Christianity from the academic program. If students want to study normative ethics, for instance, they must do so within a secular philosophical context, even though most Americans do ethics within the framework of their basic religious commitments. How can Cornell with a straight face urge students to do more work in ethics when it denies many of them the opportunity to do so within the framework that makes most sense to them -- all the while telling trustees and others that the University believes in diversity?


6. Cornell requires students to pay a Student Activities Fee, but the Student Activities Finance Commission refuses to support religious activities of groups on campus.


Why such a discriminatory policy? According to Cornell counsel Jim Mingle, it's because religious students try to convert others and because their activities may be contentious.


But wait a minute -- is this not also true of various environmental, animal rights and gay activist groups? And in any case, if universities are about ideas, then why is it wrong to try to persuade others of the truth of one's views? And if President Rawlings is right that "we are a community of iconoclasts," then why is it that only religious iconoclasts are to be excluded from the game? Cornell ignores the Supreme Court's Rosenberger dictum on viewpoint discrimination by falling back on the position that we are a private university and thus can discriminate as we wish.


After close to 30 years at Cornell it is my considered judgment that faculty and administration do not really want the curriculum to include a genuine diversity of ideas.


Yes, we have made considerable progress in attracting students of color and other minorities to Cornell, but in some respects there is substantially less diversity at Cornell today than 30 or 40 years ago.


Even though Americans are a highly religious people, Cornell treats normative religion in much the same way Americans treated blacks in years past: "As long as you religious students and faculty are willing to sit in the back of the bus and be quiet, we, the enlightened ones at Cornell, will tolerate you. But be religious on your own nickel at home or in church but not in public, for religion is basically private and personal; God and normative religion have nothing to do with the real academic life of the university. After all, theologians are 'sectarians' and they rely on faith and feelings rather than on reason. Theology and theological ethics simply don't belong in an enlightened environment like Cornell."


Let me repeat, I am not calling for censorship, for restrictions on academic freedom or for imposing religious beliefs on anyone. I'm only asking that Cornell's faculty, administrators, and trustees stop privileging liberal to left wing social and political thinking, stop discriminating against theological thinking and make a bona fide effort to hire some "otherwise-thinking men [and women]" as faculty.


At the very least, we might hope that faculty and administrators would tell the truth about multiculturalism and diversity at the university, namely that the only kind of diversity that Cornell welcomes is the politically correct variety.


I often wonder why conservative and religious trustees and alumni continue to give millions of dollars to Cornell each year. Do such donors understand the extent to which their gifts underwrite an education that is largely hostile to beliefs and values they hold dear? Are they really aware of the narrowness and bias of various departments within the University or the degree to which students are being indoctrinated rather than educated?


My own attempts to foster genuine diversity at Cornell have been met with profound indifference. Long and carefully crafted memos to President Rawlings, former provost Don Randel, and various department chairs have never been answered or even acknowledged (You can find two of these memos on line: http://www.cornell.edu/UniversityFaculty/OnLineForum/Baer991011Diversity.html; also . . . Baer950307FCRmemo.html).


One last thought: Over the years a variety of writers have reminded us that genuine disagreement in itself can be a significant moral achievement. But when you ignore honest criticism and disagreement you dehumanize your opponents by treating them as not worthy of notice and respect.


So Cornell administrators and faculty, don't talk about the value of iconoclasts and other-wise thinking people and then utterly ignore what they have to say. That's not a fair way to play the game.

Archived article by Richard Baer