Straws in the Wind - Part 38

From the Wall St. Journal: A conservative think tank with deep ties to the Trump administration has targeted Cornell University with a civil rights complaint, alleging the Ivy League school has used DEI practices that the group says are discriminatory in its faculty hiring and student scholarships. The complaint alleges that Cornell placed “an illegal identity-based ideology above equal opportunity and merit” that discriminated against job candidates and created a hostile environment for people who disagreed with that ideology... 

A Cornell University spokesperson said the school’s hiring policies focus on merit and prohibit discrimination. “The university will promptly review any complaints about past hiring practices and take appropriate action if our anti-discriminatory hiring policies were not followed,” the spokesperson said.

The complaint cites a 2020 email about conversations among faculty and administrators discussing a plan to make “our hoped-for diversity hire.” The email says: “What we should be doing is inviting one person whom we have identified as being somebody that we would like to join our department and not have that person in competition with others.” A second email included in the complaint, dated 2022, says one candidate was dropped from further consideration “because their D&I statement was so seriously and unambiguously weak that we could not imagine them being a finalist.” ...

Full story at https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/cornell-civil-rights-dei-america-first-policy-institute-178f7be4.

From WOSU: The new state law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion at Ohio public universities went into effect on June 27. That same afternoon, Ohio State University told several alumni groups that their mission statements had been changed to comply with that law. Craig Little, director of alumni engagement at Ohio State's Alumni Association, to Asian & Pacific Islander Alumni Society, emailed the group that its mission statement had already been changed, from “Our mission is to promote the interests of alumni who identify as Asian & Pacific Islander,” to “Our mission is to promote the interests of all alumni.” This change has sparked frustration in OSU alumni organizations.

Responding to Little’s email, organization president Justin Liu, wrote “I am writing in absolute disbelief and deep frustration regarding this decision to unilaterally alter the mission statement of the Asian and Pacific Islander Alumni Society without consultation, discussion, even basic courtesy.”

“Let's be perfectly clear: stripping language that explicitly affirms our mission to serve Asian and Pacific Island identifying alumni is not a harmless "compliance" edit. It is an erasure - plain and simple,” Liu’s response continues. The university said that some changes to try to comply with the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act may have been done “prematurely” and that they are currently reviewing the changes...

Full story at https://www.wosu.org/politics-government/2025-07-01/ohio-state-changes-alumni-groups-mission-statements-to-comply-with-new-state-law.