Cornell’s $60 million Nov. 7 settlement with the Trump administration, while restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal research funding, also saw the negotiated closure of several ongoing civil rights investigations into the University.
The investigations into Cornell were launched by the civil rights offices of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, according to the settlement.
“The United States, therefore, agrees that it will close the Investigations, and shall treat Cornell as eligible for grants, funding, contracts, and awards on the same basis as other universities, and no less favorable than those available to any other university,” the settlement reads.
Now, in the aftermath of the deal, The Sun looked back at two Title VI investigations into alleged antisemitism on campus that were among the inquiries dropped by the federal government.
The Investigations
In a statement sent by administrators following the settlement, the University explained that the agreement was not an “admission of wrongdoing” and that “Cornell has not been found in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in any of the investigations or compliance reviews of the university.”
These investigations are the only two made public through an ED webpage that released hundreds of civil rights complaints against schools and universities nationwide. The page was last updated on Aug. 12. Each Cornell investigation includes the submitted complaint, and a letter from the OCR to then Cornell President Martha Pollack. Identifying information was redacted.
The first complaint, filed Oct. 18, 2023, alleges that a professor “has spread so much hate and lies” and is “pushing people towards violence.” The complainant claims that the professor supported Hamas and “is literally brainwashing students to hate and discriminate towards a certain religion — Jews.”
The second complaint was filed Feb. 5, 2024, citing the “toxic, antisemitic climate” faced by a Jewish graduate student in the Mathematics department. This complaint, filed by the student’s mother, says: “He's isolated as the [redacted] in the department, and surrounded by antisemitic rhetoric on a daily basis.” It also reports flyers in graduate student offices which are “supporting Hamas, calling for the end of Israel, [the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement], accusations of genocide, and the like.” Departmental tensions escalated when the student’s face was found vandalized on a printed course roster on Jan. 30, 2024, according to the report.
The Cornell University Police Department listened to complaints about both the flyers and vandalism, according to the 2024 complaint, but determined there was “insufficient evidence” to launch an investigation. Mathematics department leadership sent an email on Nov. 9, 2023, indirectly addressing the flyer complaints by encouraging the department “to engage in dialogue about how personal signs, positioned in individual spaces may impact others who have to share those spaces and respond with care and consideration,” according to a screenshot of the email in the complaint.
Both files include letters notifying Pollack that the OCR would investigate “whether the University responded to alleged harassment of students in a manner consistent with the requirements of Title VI.”
Graduate Math Department Case
What the second Title VI report misses, an anonymous mathematics graduate student told the Sun, was the role of the Cornell Grad Student Workers United union in escalating the Jewish student’s workplace discomfort. CGSU had recently been established in the Mathematics department, and is affiliated with United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.
After learning that UE publicly supports the pro-Palestine BDS movement, the Jewish student allegedly asked to leave CGSU. The next day, his class roster photo was found “crossed off,” with “the word ‘traitor’ written under his picture,” the anonymous student said.
“I think because of … Israel occupying Gaza, the union really changed their focus to be more political,” the anonymous student said. She noted intense “social pressure to not question anything the union does,” and said CGSU maintained “a Google Sheet that had data on every grad student they had interacted with and notes about them,” contributing to the discomfort of the student filing the Title VI complaint.
CGSU resistance inadvertently limited the department’s response to the students’ flyer complaints, according to the anonymous source. To avoid explicitly addressing divisions over Israel and Palestine and exposing the upset student, mathematics department leadership implemented a series of blanket policies limiting “all personal display items.” CGSU representatives protested this policy, viewing it as an infringement on their union and identity expression rights, said the source. CGSU did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment.
A May 10, 2024, email sent by a CGSU representative to mathematics graduate students references a Feb. 14, 2024, department policy to remove “all personal display items within 48 hours.”
“[M]any of us put up more decorations, including flyers with our collective demand to bargain,” the email reads.
Others also displayed pride flags and signs “advocating for representation of women and ethnic minority people in mathematics,” according to Isaac Goldberg, a mathematics Ph.D. candidate.
The mathematics administration replaced the Feb. 14 policy with a “less broad” poster policy under the direction of then-Interim President Michael Kotlikoff, sweeping the student offices on April 25, 2024, to remove items — including union and pride flags — according to the email.
“Like many others in the office now that I have spoken to, I no longer feel respected or welcomed by our department,” the CGSU email reads. The message did not mention that the Jewish student’s experience of workplace discomfort had informed department policy.
“The department's hands were really tied,” the anonymous student told The Sun. “They were stuck between a potential harassment case or even just trying to protect the student on one side of things, and trying to not anger the union.” She reports that Cornell’s Intergroup Dialogue Program, now the Center for Dialogue and Pluralism, was called in to mediate departmental tensions, with little success.
A professor in the mathematics department confirmed the progression of events to The Sun, and said that, while not “formally” aware of the Title VI investigation, he had “suspected” the incidents contributed to the federal antisemitism complaints against Cornell.
Anonymous Professor Antisemitism Case
The first Title VI complaint reports that the “last date of discrimination” occurred on Oct. 16, 2023, by a professor whose identity the OCR redacted. The complainant calls for the professor to be “not only…fired from his current job [but] that his teaching license is revoked and that he is black listed from ever teaching his ideology and hatred.”
The complaint was filed Oct. 18, 2023, days after Prof. Russell Rickford, history, delivered controversial remarks at an Oct. 15, 2023 pro-Palestinian rally in Ithaca Commons. Rickford expressed that he was initially “exhilarated” by Hamas’s attack on Israel, which killed 1,400 Israelis. Hamas is a designated terrorist organization in the United States and Europe.
“Hamas has challenged the monopoly of violence … It was exhilarating,” Rickford said. “It was energizing. And if they weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human. I was exhilarated."
Rickford later apologized for his “horrible choice of words” in an Oct. 18, 2023, opinion piece for the Sun: “I want to make it clear that I unequivocally oppose and denounce racism, anti-semitism, Islamophobia, militarism, fundamentalism and all systems that dehumanize, divide and oppress people.”
Neither Cornell Media Relations, the OCR Press Office nor Rickford responded to requests for comment on the released Title VI file.
Iris Liang is a member of the class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a Senior Writer and can be reached her at iliang@cornellsun.com.
