Dear Cornell Chairman Kraig Kayser & Board Of Trustees:

As members of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) and Cornell alumni, we are distressed at the plummeting reputation, collapsing commitment to academic excellence, and growing campus disorder now in evidence at Cornell University. Plainly speaking, Cornell is in crisis.
Cornell made headlines when it declared that the 2023-24 academic year would be the “Year of Free Speech.” Instead, a “Year of Failed Leadership” ensued as Cornell saw disaster after disaster unfold on campus.
Like at other elite universities, Cornell headlines became punchlines as the school traveled down the misguided path of chilled speech, one-sided political activism, ideological dogma, dissolving behavioral norms, and alumni, student, and donor revolts. The result has been a precipitous internal loss of respect for our institution, growing campus chaos, and a greatly diminished Cornell standing among our nation’s major universities.
As is no surprise, these Cornell happenings are now bringing disturbing but necessary consequences. With strong encouragement from CFSA, the presidency of Martha Pollack was terminated as part of a wave of ongoing leadership turnover (including the announced replacements of the president, provost, and vice president of University relations) at Cornell in recent months — largely due to the horrific mishandling of issues related to speech and viewpoint suppression, the growing outrage over widespread DEI-driven discrimination and antisemitism, and a seeming intentional self-destruction of the school’s storied history and legacy.
Although the leadership names and faces are changing, the distorted ideology and poor management that led Cornell to this sorry moment remain. And nowhere is this dysfunction more apparent than in Cornell’s shameful rules for trustee elections.
In an era when leading universities claim to champion open dialogue, Cornell University has what may be the most biased, restrictive, and ...