The civil rights crisis at Cornell demands federal action

Once a prestigious institution of American higher education, Cornell University has become a home for antisemitic protests, students supporting intifada, and professors justifying terror. But the story doesn’t end there.

At Cornell, identity politics is a governing principle, deeply embedded in the institution itself. Cornell’s new president, Michael Kotlikoff, recently claimed that his institution is committed to merit-based decisions in all of its processes; however, public university policy and internal documents suggest otherwise. They also suggest that Kotlikoff has overseen the civil rights violations, going back to his time as Provost.

The America First Policy Institute has filed a formal civil rights complaint against Cornell University for engaging in a deeply embedded, systemic pattern of discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. AFPI is urging several federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Education, to thoroughly investigate whether Cornell University is violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and even the False Claims Act.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, skin color, and national origin in institutions receiving federal financial assistance. On January 21, President Trump signed an executive order clarifying that discrimination under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies is illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

The same executive order directs all federal agencies to identify targets for civil compliance investigations, including institutions of higher education with endowments valued at over $1 billion. As of March 2025, Cornell University’s endowment was valued at $10.3 billion, making it an excellent candidate for federal investigation under this executive order.

Evidence–obtained from internal records and emails detailing race-conscious policies embedded in the hiring process, scholarship selection, and faculty evaluation criteria–all strongly indicate that Cornell University is violating federal law.

A now-deleted (but archived) page on Weill Cornell Medical School’s official website previously described a “Faculty Diversity Hiring Incentive Program,” including explicit references to financial incentives based on candidates’ racial and ethnic identities. This overtly discriminatory practice is just the tip of the DEI spear.

Cornell’s identity-based preferential treatment extends beyond the hiring process to student opportunities. Numerous scholarships explicitly reference race, sex, and ethnicity criteria. Many include racially-exclusive language (e.g., “Member of an underrepresented group… (African American, Latino American, Native American)”) to target members of specific racial and ethnic groups.

On top of all this, emails obtained by AFPI reveal an intense institutional focus on mandated diversity statements, which likely serve as ideological litmus tests.

Viewpoint discrimination isn’t prohibited under federal civil rights law, but it is frequently upstream of other, illegal civil rights violations. This relationship was dramatically demonstrated during last year’s campus antisemitism crisis, where the prevailing far-left campus monoculture contributed to hostile environments for Jewish students. The Department of Education included modest reforms to address viewpoint discrimination in its initial settlement proposal to Harvard University.

This same dynamic was present at Cornell last year when the university hosted an antisemitic encampment that remains there today. And in March, pro-Hamas demonstrators disrupted a discussion featuring Israel’s former foreign minister and vice prime minister, Tzipi Livni, with antisemitic chants. Thirteen people were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct following this incident. More recently, Cornell allowed Russell Rickford, an associate professor of history who praised the October 7 Hamas attack, to resume teaching under Kotlikoff’s watch.

Twenty-two percent of Cornell’s student body is Jewish.

Recent events, and Cornell’s broadly hostile environment for students who think differently, have negatively impacted the university’s reputation. For example, in FIRE’s 2025 College Free Speech Rankings, Cornell University is ranked 215th out of 251 colleges, with an overall score of 36.49 and a “Below Average” speech climate—a drop from previous years. Today, only four in 10 Cornell students feel comfortable expressing their political views on controversial topics, a drop of more than 33% since 2021.

DEI preferences and a hostile campus climate are a toxic combination for academic freedom and the pursuit of intellectual inquiry. By filing formal civil rights complaints, the America First Policy Institute is calling on the Departments of Education and Justice to investigate Cornell for potential violations of Title VI and Title IX.

In holding Cornell accountable for its apparent civil rights violations, the administration should also address larger, systemic patterns of discrimination and intolerance within elite universities. These institutions, like Cornell’s pervasive campus monoculture, are the product of discriminatory hiring practices and foster an environment of civil rights abuses, including illegal discriminatory DEI practices and toleration of antisemitic harassment.

In addition to enabling violations of federal civil rights laws, such conditions undermine the very purpose of universities as institutions of truth-seeking and knowledge dissemination.

The civil rights crisis at Cornell is a real-time test case for the Trump administration. It raises a critical question: Will the federal government finally hold elite universities accountable for their actions?

Everyone deserves equal rights, regardless of sex, race, or ethnicity.