What Does Cornell Teach?
Editor's Note
In 2011, the National Association of Scholars published a report, “What Does Bowdoin Teach?” The genesis of this report was a golf game that I played in 2010 with the then-president of Bowdoin College, Barry Mills. We had never met. He knew that I was a conservative, and he wanted to know what exactly it is about Bowdoin, and other elite liberal arts colleges, that I object to. That was simple. I told him there is altogether too much celebration of racial and ethnic difference (particularly as it applies to blacks), and not enough celebration of our common American identity. I didn’t think that satisfied him, but the discussion about diversity went no further.
About a month later, I learned that Mills had, in his annual convocation address, called for more intellectual diversity at Bowdoin. He conceded that Bowdoin was “in the main” liberal. The phrase “in the main” begins to give away the game. He is diminishing the problem he says he wants to address. It turns out that only about 2% of the faculty is conservative, making Bowdoin not “in the main” liberal, but almost antiseptically so.
Mills then told a story of a conservative, presumably a typical one, with whom he had recently played golf. That, of course, was me, although unnamed. He told his audience that this conservative did not want blacks on campus. He seemed to miss the irony that, in a speech calling for more conservatives, the first conservative he comes across he calls a “racist.”
He missed the irony because he didn’t really want more conservative views. It was at this point that he gave up the rest of the game. Why should he want to hear conservative views? He is certain they are wrong and so he feels no more obligation to teach them than he feels an obligation to teach that the earth is flat. He doesn’t know, because he has only a casual acquaintance with the liberal arts, that certainty is the bane of the liberal arts, which are supposed to teach the opposite: uncertainty, the recognition that what one believes today may be shown to be false in the future. This, of course, implies an openness to ideas different from one’s own ideas. Western civilization depends on this. The liberal arts are the arts of free men, which not so long ago Bowdoin appreciated. The Bowdoin 1960 course catalogue explains the mission of Bowdoin College:
“College aims always to give its students a knowledge of the culture of the western world. They must understand and appreciate its origins and traditions, the forces essential for its operation and progress, and the values which it seeks to realize. While an individual may remain ignorant of this heritage and still exist, ‘the common good’ and ‘the benefit of society,’ which President McKeen asserted as the objectives of the College, are unattainable unless leaders and followers are alike acquainted with what civilization, in its broadest sense, implies.”
I knew that Bowdoin no longer embraced this mission, but I wanted to find out just how far it had drifted away from it. To determine that was the purpose of the NAS’s report, “What Does Bowdoin Teach?” It turned out that Bowdoin had not just “drifted away” from its earlier mission; it had rejected it altogether. The Bowdoin of 2010 disdains the Bowdoin of 1960, which is to say, the Bowdoin of 2010 disdains America.
Although “What Does Bowdoin Teach?” focused on the Bowdoin curriculum, the report did not ignore student life, which, not surprisingly, taught the same disdain for America as did the curriculum.
In the following essay, Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, turns his attention to student life at Cornell, which is no different from student life at Bowdoin or other elite colleges. He finds the same disdain for America; indeed, he finds more of it.
TK
On September 16, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University alleging that the university failed to protect her and failed to respond appropriately in October 2024 when she was sexually assaulted at a Chi Phi fraternity party.
“Doe” is the pseudonym of the complainant, who in 2024 was a sophomore. Doe’s suit names seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity and several other entities, including a bar in Ithaca, New York, that had served her alcohol on the day of the party.
Student misbehavior of this sort is not something that the National Association of Scholars usually addresses. In this instance, NAS takes no position on the merits of Doe’s lawsuit. Details of what happened at the fraternity party have been widely discussed, as have the actions that Cornell authorities took after Doe presented her claims in 2024. The court will in due course resolve this matter.
In the meantime, the case has become the center of controversy at Cornell over how the university’s president has responded; whether the university as a whole is to blame for social atmosphere that contributed to the October 2024 event; and whether Cornell has a “rape culture.” The Cornell Faculty Senate has debated but passed, a motion of no confidence in Cornell’s president, Michael Kotlioff. The vote is scheduled for October 28.
On September 22, after Doe filed her suit but weeks before the real furor, Cornell released a lengthy document, Report of the Committee on the Future of the American University. That report joined a handful of other major statements from American universities that aimed to diagnose the challenges currently facing American universities. The Cornell report observes: “the current crisis is unprecedented because the forces bearing down on higher education are pressing simultaneously on every dimension of universities: how they teach, what they research, who they serve, how they are funded, and whether the public believes they are worthy of significant support.”
The 238 report has no mention of the role of fraternities; no observations about the sexual behavior of students; no expressed concerns about assaults, the use of alcohol or drugs; no word about the physical or psychological safety of students, except for a passing reference to “safety nets to catch students who struggle,” which in context refers to under-prepared minority students who struggle academically.
Indeed, in the whole report there are but three references to “student life,” all three of which attest to the issue being outside the scope of faculty concerns. It is worth quoting these brief passages.
Faculty are in charge of intellectual development in the classroom, while student affairs professionals are in charge of social, personal, and professional growth outside of it. One consequence of this arrangement is that many faculty have little contact with staff or understanding of student life. This means, for example, that their sense of what students of a particular age, or in particular situations, can handle is underinformed. At the same time, the role of staff, particularly those who interact with students regularly, is seen as outside the educational mission. It can sometimes feel like there are two separate institutions stitched together, one organized around classroom instruction and one organized around the rest of students’ lives. (p. 46)
The second passage calls on Cornell to give “serious consideration” to reserving a seat on the board for a student “to bring the most immediate understanding of student life into the boardroom.” (p. 159)
The third passage calls for a “collaboration between faculty and student life could study the sociology of contemporary academic life and design new structures for intellectual community that can help build thick relationships in the classroom and beyond.” (p. 230)
Perhaps this lack of attention to student life should not be surprising. The Cornell report was the work of a committee composed of eighteen faculty members “informed by over 6,000 stakeholders across hundreds of meetings” (p. 7). It was concerned with “the whirlwind of forces buffeting American higher education,” (ibid). It addresses a great many of these crosswinds and admits the existence of other matters that it didn’t get to, including a “student mental health crisis,” (p.217). Curiously, the report asserts that Cornell’s “undergraduate education framework centers on cultivating judgment as the defining purpose of a human-centered education.”
Jane Doe’s behavior on the evening of the alleged sexual assault, the behavior of the seven young men she has accused of rape, and the subsequent behavior of both Jane Doe and those men offer no evidence that good “judgment” played any significant role. Alcohol and drug-fueled promiscuous coupling likewise provides poor testimony to the success of a “human-centered education.” Yes, these are things that some humans do, but the phase suggests that Cornell more likely has in mind some degree of self-control, restraint, and respect for others.
The Committee that produced this report was “asked it to examine nearly everything a university does,” (p. 8). Plainly one of the things that Cornell does is foster an atmosphere of sexual license. This includes its presentation of guides such as Sexual Pleasure: Finding the Sweet Spot and other material in the vein of “sex-positive” health resources. Students are encouraged to pursue sexual exploration, including events with multiple partners. The only restraint on these explorations is that all of the partners must “consent.”
“Consent,” of course, is what is at issue in the Jane Doe case. She claims her judgment was impaired and that she did not really consent. But her partners believed she did and her statements in the weeks subsequent to the party give credence to their claims. How long after a sexual encounter can a woman withdraw her consent? This will be an issue in the trial.
Whatever the outcome, the issue will remain whether Cornell or any other college or university can continue to pose as a responsible educational institution, attempting to shape students’ judgment for the better while also fostering an ethic of “consent” as the only meaningful limit on the sexual free-for-all of young people who prioritize physical pleasure over respect for themselves and others.
The readiness of Cornell’s adult authorities to discard any remnants of America’s Puritan past or other religious or social strictures in favor of the unending sexual revolution earns the university praise in some quarters. The “My Body, Myself” mantra is now deeply entrenched in American culture, especially among adolescents. Translated into an ethic for college students who have the means and opportunities to turn it into ruinous action, it is very bad counsel indeed. And counsel that was entirely invisible to the eighteen faculty members and their 6,000 consultants who spent a year wondering why the American people have become so distrustful of what universities such as Cornell teach their children.