Another college president …
… says “buh-bye.”
This time it’s Cornell’s Martha Pollack. From Professor William Jacobson, a law professor at Cornell and the creator of the blog Legal Insurrection:
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.
Way past time for Cornell and every other misguided university to return campuses to the pursuit of actual learning and fair debate governed by respect for individuals rather than leftist identity politics.
Leftists occupy the large majority of the faculty ranks at almost all institutions of “higher learning”. Cornell, an Ivy, is one of the worst.
So much for freedom of inquiry and thought.
I find it amazing they are leaving a bastion of theirs!
In her defense, “diversity” has been redefined by the powers that be to mean that everyone—OF ANY COLOR, CREED, RELIGION, GENDER, SEX, PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY, HEIGHT, WEIGHT, PHYSIQUE, ETC.—MUST agree with the Narrative du jour.
One MUST SUPPORT the right people (i.e., those who, by definition, are ALWAYS right).
Likewise, one MUST HATE the right people (i.e., those who, by definition, are always wrong).
And if one happens not to agree with the Narrative du jour, and/or decides NOT to hate those who MUST be hated or NOT to support those who MUST be supported, then that person has REJECTED DIVERSITY (by definition) and should be treated accordingly, IOW BE HATED, OSTRACIZED, CANCELED, SHAMED, INTIMIDATED, THREATENED OR WORSE…
(To be sure that person can always recant, change his/her/its ways, agree to be re-educated…for the legions/laws and edicts of DEI are MERCIFUL…to those who truly, honestly, forthrightly seek mercy.)
But is any of the above Martha Pollock’s fault????
(And if so, how? And why?)
It’s nice to see some pushback and reversals. Still, in many places the DEI idiots are doubling down.
It would be an interesting exercise for third-year econ majors to relate regent activity to donor elasticity. “The booming sound carrying over the bullhorns in the quad is the sound of checkbooks slamming shut.”
it is time for the Cornell Trustees to turn the ship around,
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Fat chance.
Until it starts to affect the endowment and enrollment, it will never happen.
I may be branded as Misogynist, but why are so many Uni Pres, Chief of Police, DA’s, Prosecutors, and other high level positions held by Woman?
Barry Meislin- That is also my view of “diversity.” Diverse in everything but ideas.
physicsguy
There are some signs of that happening. Robert Kraft, the gazillionaire owner of the New England Patriots, has stated that he will stop contributing to Columbia, his alma mater. Harvard had a reduction in early admissions applications.
Regarding enrollment, there is a lot of ruin in the Ivy League. When you admit only 5-10% of your applicants (more like 5% for the Ivies), and 90% of the applicants could do the work, a 20% drop in applications still leaves admittance of applicants around 10%. Any admissions committee worth its salt can still spin that 10% admissions rate to BEST FRESHMAN CLASS EVAH!
Nonetheless, I would predict a 20% drop in applications to the Ivies from Jewish high school students
Have you heard of this book by Andrew Pessin, who teaches at your former stomping grounds? Book Review: Bright College Years by Andrew Pessin.
“ While I wish her well in her personal life…”
I don’t.
This is a satisfying first step for Prof. Jacobson, but only a first step.
SHIREHOME,
Higher education has become a gynocracy. Not only are the students now 60% women, the faculty and administrators have now also become female majority. I think that is ONE reason for the decline of higher ed.
Gringo,
Yes, I have. I’ve been in constant communication with Andy the past week. I just ordered his book from Amazon. Small effort on my part to support him. His new book, NeverGreen.
When I went to the CC website, physicsguy, I not only learned that the “female POC” president had resigned, claiming she wanted to be freer to express her opinions, but I was also confronted with photos of a drag show in the college chapel, in which I was married.
Once again, the best thing that ever happened at Cornell University occurred on 5/8/77, forty-seven years ago yesterday.
Gringo:
Harvard’s Jewish enrollment has been decreasing for years. I don’t know if Jewish applications have also decreased. But Jewish adminissions have. This was a purposeful DEI step by Harvard.
Cultural Marxists Seminaries have been building since the mid 60s, they won’t be gone anytime soon. Defund them today and they could last decades with the capital they hold. Their faculty is bloated beyond any government bureaucracy.
Said it before: If I were a Jewish parent looking for a college for my kid, I’d be wondering if any of the possibilities could afford to even notice an offense against my kid.
More than likely, the perp would be one of the Mascots of The Anointed and thus immune to even a sharp look from the administrators.
Another thing I’ve said before; Going to be funny/sad when Jews discover their safe spaces are at NASCAR events or Baptist churches.
Neo to Gringo
Harvard’s Jewish enrollment has been decreasing for years. I don’t know if Jewish applications have also decreased. But Jewish adminissions have. This was a purposeful DEI step by Harvard.
A quick Internet search found this article. Jewish Student Enrollment Is Down at Many Ivies
Which is something I hadn’t previously known. Thanks, Neo.
Flagship state universities will see higher Jewish enrollments in the near future, methinks.
Marisa: Amen. Listened to that event last week, along with 3/2/69.
You know why.
A 2 part reason that may sound vulgar. With provisos, reservations and exceptions, social shit means a lot more to many women than it does to most men, excepting perhaps homosexuals and the risk averse. Part of the feminist agenda is to secure directive control over institutions originally designed to do one thing or generate one particular outcome, and turn them into secure, welcoming, inclusive, and comfy totalitarian nests for yet more social shit.
The Catholic Church is an institution currently under such siege. First infiltrated by and then presided over by gays, and now in the process – unless it can be stopped – of becoming reduced to another version of an NGO.
Gringo:
For a long time, there weren’t many Jews at “elite” schools. They didn’t want them and were quite overt about it. But it crept up over the years and by the 1980s and 1990s, there were many, because Jews did well in academia and the overt discrimination had ended. Then the administrators started the DEI stuff and Jews were on the outs, although not as much as one would think because they remained highly qualified academically. But they were and still are held to much higher standards in order to deflate their numbers – much like what’s been going on in recent years with Asian students. If it were a meritocracy, all elite schools would have even more disproportionate numbers of Jewish and Asian students.
Kate, CO is indeed not the CO you once knew. I and my Wife are a CSU alumni, I noticed years ago that it was undergoing major shift. Such a shame
Once again, the best thing that ever happened at Cornell University occurred on 5/8/77, forty-seven years ago yesterday.
Marisa:
OK. I had to look it up. 🙂
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Cornell 5/8/77 is a live album by the American rock band the Grateful Dead, recorded on May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. In 2011, the recording was selected for inclusion in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress…
Stephen Thomas Erlewine on AllMusic wrote, “Sourced from the original soundboard recordings by Betty Cantor-Jackson, the sound is colorful and vivid, an excellent complement to a prime Dead performance. What makes this such an exceptional performance isn’t that it’s the Grateful Dead at their most experimental… but at their warmest…. If this isn’t the best Grateful Dead show ever – a hard thing to quantify – it’s nevertheless at the sweet spot of providing hardcore Deadheads with plenty to savor while offering a good introduction for neophytes, which is more than enough to make it essential.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_5/8/77
______________________________
Listening to it now … yowza! If you were there, Salut!
I wonder how Hillsdale will be effected by all of this?
I mean in the sense of people looking for alternatives.
That new university founded recently in Austin TX is intended specifically to stop the nonsense and provide a traditional liberal-arts education.
Wonder how long it’ll take before “Biden” starts suing them to heaven and back.
A while back, a fellow identifying himself as a Republican state legislator offered a post explaining how people like himself were stymied by the social dynamics of Republican legislative caucuses. I do wish Neo would fish it out and make a post of it.
It’s useless to discuss it in re New York, but there are things that Republican legislators can do to throw sand in the gears of the woke machine in red states.
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One of these it to require that the boards of all four-year institutions be of a size which does not impair function (5-19 members) and (barring a special dispensation) be elected by a postal ballot of alumni registered to vote in the state in question. These elections could be held at a uniform point in a quadrennial cycle and the ballot counting done by the board of elections in the county in which the main campus sits.
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Another would be to require that the president of any institution be a person who has not worked in higher education during the previous ten years.
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Another would be to limit degree and concentration programs at state institutions to those delineated in a glossary incorporated into the state education law.
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Another would be to empower the state auditor to close programs and discharge their faculty upon a formal determination that the program was not in compliance with the description supplied in the state’s glossary. (A great many teacher-training programs are begging to be shut down).
Have you heard what happed to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the Fairfax County Public school, ranked No. 1 in the country by U.S. News & World Report? The liberals noticed that it wasn’t very diverse. mostly white and Asiatic students, so they changed the admission criteria, now it’s down to no. 14.
Today at 4:00 pm the Athenian Stranger will hold an X spaces broadcast on Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind:
https://twitter.com/Athens_Stranger/status/1788440616239853995?t=o0kd3FUprV5jhiBY6Ff5cw&s=19
Related to the revolting concept of university intolerance:
“Stanford’s Censorship: An Interview with Dr. Scott Atlas”—
https://stanfordreview.org/stanfords-censorship-an-interview-with-dr-scott-atlas/
H/T Powerline blog.
What Stanford U. did to Dr. Atlas is unconscionable…
https://im1776.com/2024/05/10/the-implosion-of-the-universities/
I don’t know whether this piece has been linked in another of neo’s threads already or not, but it is in my view well worthy of another link if so. It touches on Bloom’s Closing in particular, hence my inclusion of it here.
Barry @4:28 pm ended with “But is any of the above Martha Pollock’s fault????”
My answer is yes. She participated in and even helped lead the DEI abomination. Was she the main driving force? No, but she is still culpable for her actions.
One could just as easily ask and answer similar questions:
Is the concentration camp guard or executioner guilty of crimes against humanity, even though his last name didn’t start with Hi?
Is the klansman that threw the rope over the limb guilty of murder, even though he wasn’t the grand wizard nor did he place the noose over the condemned man’s neck?
Note that in both these cases there was extreme peer pressure to participate, which I believe was the justification of your question. But in all three cases that offers no defense: you done wrong, you knew (or at least should have) that it was wrong, you caved to peer pressure and did it.
Sorry, guilty! Fire her azz and may she never again hold a job in education at any level.
It is in those moments where everyone you know is urging you to act against all moral decency that you discover your own morality. Or lack of.
Right on Hurin3!
Huxley, I was not there. My first show was a couple years later.
It’s the most famous live bootleg GD recording and wasn’t officially released until a few years ago. There is ongoing controversy within GD fandom as to whether or not the show is worth the hype or massively overrated.
On 5/8/17 the GD tribute band Dark Star Orchestra performed the show from beginning to end — not note for note but every song in order — in Barton Hall in honor of the 40th anniversary. But when Dead and Company, the latest iteration of the actual band, played there on 5/8/23 they did not stick to the setlist.
The real Grateful Dead played two more times at Cornell, 5/7/80 and 5/16/81.
Speaking of another institute named after Thomas Jefferson, this happened:
GOING VIRAL: Thomas Jefferson University Graduation Announcer Botches Common Names During Ceremony (VIDEO)
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/05/going-viral-thomas-jefferson-university-graduation-announcer-botches
It is becoming more difficult by the day to distinguish reality from satire.
Can you imagine these poor graduates, having spent so much time, effort and money (borrowed or not) on their education to have this happen on their long-awaited graduation day?
The word “embarrassment” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
She needs four relatives to help her change a light bulb.