Cornell Faculty Finishes Navel Gazing and Thinks They're Just Fine

Cornell University has long been an example of an academic echo chamber where conservative and libertarian faculty have been largely purged from departmental ranks. For example, a study by The College Fix found that Democrats outnumber Republicans 98 to 1 among Cornell professors across six of the humanities departments. Cornell professors disrupt events, launch campaigns to fire the remaining conservative faculty, and foster a cancel campaign culture on campus. However, the faculty recently decided to review its own record and found . . . wait for it . . . that there really are no concrete measures needed to address their own overwhelming ideological bias.

According to a 238-page faculty report from the Committee on the Future of the American University, there was no consensus on ideological bias or how to handle it. Moreover, some faculty members insist that, while there is an ideological imbalance, it is not a problem because liberal faculty can explain or incorporate conservative values when needed.

The report boldly states that “[t]his report asks how the university must adapt to honor its quietly revolutionary purpose in American life. The answer cannot leave the university exactly as it is today.” However, one thing apparently does not have to change: the faculty’s ideological orthodoxy.

The report has that certain feel of an academic confab product, including a self-congratulatory observation that “disagreements did not curdle into outrage.”

The report acknowledges the ideological diversity problem but leaves it maddeningly undeveloped and ultimately unaddressed:

“The committee takes these concerns seriously without endorsing every version of them. A university that cannot model genuine pluralism of thought, that cannot hold and argue across deep disagreements without dissolving into either enforced consensus or performative conflict, is not promoting learning.”