Prof. William Jacobson, law, is preparing to file a civil rights complaint seeking a federal investigation into Cornell. His complaint argues that Cornell’s handling of the now-settled Eric Cheyfitz case resulted in the doxxing of Israeli graduate student Oren Renard.
Cheyfitz faced a discrimination investigation after he allegedly asked Renard to leave his spring course on Gaza, AIIS 3500: Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance, claiming that he was “disruptive.” Cheyfitz chose to retire before the investigation could conclude, ending his disciplinary proceedings.
Jacobson plans to file the complaint with the Equal Protection Project, an organization he founded in 2023. According to their website, the EPP’s mission is to fight what they see as discrimination caused by diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, such as exclusionary fellowship and scholarship programs across the country.
Previously, Jacobson and the EPP successfully initiated several federal investigations into both Ithaca College and the Ithaca City School District in 2024. The investigations targeted minority scholarship programs at Ithaca College and investigated discrimination around an ICSD Students of Color United Summit.
Jacobson’s complaint against Cornell has not yet been filed, but he said he plans to ask U.S. government agencies to investigate who leaked Renard’s identity, whether there was coordination behind the leak and how private information about the student and discrimination case were shared.
“Among other things, we will ask the Departments of Justice and Education to use the full resources at their disposal, including the power of subpoena and compelling testimony, to investigate this doxxing and retaliation against an Israeli student,” Jacobson wrote in an email statement to The Sun.
Jacobson emphasized the need for governmental investigation, particularly “in light of the federal investigations currently pending.” Last spring, the Trump administration froze hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding for Cornell, amid several ongoing federal civil rights investigations on campus.
Alongside the request to investigate Renard’s case, Jacobson also plans to include in his complaint a request to review the rules that give Cornell’s faculty committee binding authority over matters involving academic freedom and responsibility. He identifies the role of the Faculty Senate and some of its members as “concerning” and creating an environment where many Jewish students are subject to discrimination and fear of “doxxing, leaking and faculty activism.”
The Faculty Senate’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Status of the Faculty was a point of contention during Cheyfitz’s case after the committee unanimously ruled in favor of Cheyfitz, contradicting Cornell’s Office of Civil Rights who found him in violation of federal anti-discrimination law. The Faculty Senate committee’s decision was later overturned and reinvestigated by Provost Kavita Bala, prompting the Faculty Senate to propose a resolution that called on the administration to accept the original finding by the committee.
Jacobson says that this proposed Faculty Senate resolution and public statements from faculty contradict with civil rights laws and expose issues surrounding the shared governance model.
“The entire ‘shared governance’ model needs to be reexamined as it relates to the handling of alleged civil rights violations, and this case may be the opportunity for the Departments of Justice and Education to address that problem,” Jacobson wrote.
He also says the recent Faculty Senate resolution, which he claims contained “inflammatory political rhetoric” and “an attack on the administrative outcome” in the Cheyfitz case, oversteps the bounds of the Faculty Senate, which he says is supposed to have no role in the discrimination complaint process.
The bylaws under the Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Status of the Faculty says that any written complaints brought by or against a faculty member involving “academic freedom and responsibility and freedom of teaching and learning” should be received and reviewed by the AFPSF.
Jacobson’s complaint will ask the DOJ and ED to address such issues.
“We will ask the Departments of Justice and Education to review Cornell’s specific rules purporting to give a faculty committee binding authority, and whether such shared governance is consistent with the federal civil rights laws,” Jacobson wrote.
The procedure of University Policy 6.4 says that the dean or provost “must accept the [Faculty Senate] Committee's findings,” though it adds that they “may modify the Committee's recommended sanctions.”
However, Bala said at the Faculty Senate on Oct. 8, that the reinvestigation was necessary since the Faculty Senate committee made its decision based on less strict standards than are federally required and used by the Cornell Office of Civil Rights.
“As a university, we would be violating federal anti-discrimination law if we accepted their findings based on that threshold,” Bala said.
For Jacobson, this distinction that Bala described should be formalized by the DOJ and ED.
“We will further ask these departments to issue guidance making clear that universities as institutions have an affirmative, non-waivable, non-delegable obligation to act, after the accused is provided due process, when they have evidence of civil rights violations,” Jacobson wrote.
When asked by The Sun whether they were aware of the complaint, a University spokesperson did not provide any information regarding the matter.
Jacobson told The Sun that further action following this initial complaint is yet to be determined.
“Our hope is that there will be a full and vigorous investigation not only of the doxxing and retaliation against the student, but also the larger issue of whether a university can offload its legal obligations onto a faculty committee,” Jacobson wrote. “We believe this matter could be a good test case for the role of shared governance in civil rights complaints.”
Matthew Chen is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at mchen@cornellsun.com.
