A great university, about to self-destruct
Mobilize the endowment, don’t seek appeasement
Newsletter #20 published August 27, 2025
Dear Cornell on Fire,
An extortionist regime is using a $1-billion ransom to hold Cornell hostage to its fascist demands. They are now engaged in confidential ransom negotiations where the core tenets of the University are on the table: academic freedom, free speech, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. But! The hostage happens to have a $10.7-billion endowment in their back pocket. What should the hostage treat as untouchable: Their massive endowment, or their core values?
Appeasers argue that Cornell should do whatever it takes to stay on the right side of the regime in hopes of minimizing federal cuts. Resisters argue that Cornell cannot afford to sacrifice its core values to placate a fascist, racist, ecocidal, genocidal, and criminal regime — but it can afford to ride out funding cuts with its endowment. Appeasers argue that capitulation is a stop-gap measure: We only need to chip away at our values for 4 years to appease the extortionist. Resisters point out: If it’s only 4 years, then let’s ride it out with our endowment.
Will we respond to the crisis by reaffirming the University’s original mission, or betraying it? Here’s how Cornell could use the crisis for positive transformation:
Create an endowment that serves the university, not the interests of the ultra-rich. Too long have we labored under the unjust doctrine of an endowment for oligarchs,* where we are told that we cannot use our endowment to decarbonize campus or protect our jobs because a millionaire once dictated that their “gift” can be used only for their own interests, however myopic or regressive. And yet we also know that Cornell is perfectly able to revisit donor agreements when it serves their corporate interests, as when administrators paved a paradise to put up a parking lot at Redbud Woods.
We could emerge from the crisis with a new model: An endowment restructured to serve the University. Senior administration could take the reasonable step of contacting donors to inform them that their endowment gifts will soon become meaningless if they are not made flexible enough to serve the University’s most pressing survival needs.
Prioritize workers’ rights over endowment returns. Some wonder, what will Cornell administrators tell all the people they “need” to fire if they don’t seek appeasement? The fact is that Cornell does not “need” to fire anyone. They could mobilize the endowment instead. An analysis by Cornell Contingent Academic Workers points out that a modest adjustment to endowment payouts for an emergency period could protect academic jobs under Trump’s funding cuts. Over 300 Cornellians have signed a letter to the trustees in support of this emergency fund.
Meanwhile, Ithaca’s legislators are considering a Just Cause Employment law that would protect employees from unjust termination. One allowable condition for termination is employer economic hardship. This raises the question: Can an employer legitimately claim financial hardship when they have access to a $10.7 billion endowment that reasonable observers agree could keep jobs from being cut? By claiming hardship while holding a $10.7 billion endowment, Cornell treats the endowment as untouchable while treating the livelihoods of students, staff, instructors, and academic workers as expendable.
Enact democratic governance. The hostage dilemma exposes deep flaws in Cornell’s governance model, which shuts out the actual stakeholders — students, faculty, and staff — in favor of rule by an unelected leadership appointed and overseen by a board of corporate-financial trustees. The University’s governing bodies (faculty, staff, and students) should immediately be restored to decision-making power, including a power of veto over the diktats of senior administration and the Board of Trustees.
Acknowledge the reality of our carbon budget. President Kotlikoff has issued several moving (or threatening, depending on your perspective) statements announcing austerity in the name of financial sustainability amid a perilous political environment. Where is the concern about the rather larger peril to the future of the University and Cornellians - the escalating climate and ecological crisis? What kind of sustainability can there be without brave trade offs addressing this reality? Although it is an institution of science, Cornell continues to treat the carbon budget as a fictional concept with no pressing relevance to their operating model.*
Recognize that some things are not so complex. One argument circulating goes: “It’s complex. If you’re opposed to appeasement, you just don’t see how nuanced the situation is.” This appeasement argument has a historical precedent in Nazi Germany. The White Rose Leaflets penned by student and faculty resisters noted:
“Nothing is more shameful to a civilized nation than to allow itself to be ‘governed’ by an irresponsible clique of sovereigns who have given themselves over to dark urges – and that without resisting! (Leaflet I)…Get out of the lecture halls of the SS-Noncom-or-Major-Generals and the Party sycophants! This has to do with genuine scholarship and true freedom of thought! No threats can dismay us, not even the closing of our colleges (Leaflet VI).”
They were executed for those words. We, however, can still say similar words without threat of execution. But we must recognize that our situation is not nuanced, and there is no feigning “institutional neutrality” on a fascist takeover of higher education. (And we have a thing or two to say to those who are worried about resistance being “illegal.”)
Which brings us to our bottom line: NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO RESIST FASCISM. It is our duty. If we capitulate now, if we duck our heads and toe the line, fascism will accelerate and resistance will only become more deadly. In his 1974 novel Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, Phillip K. Dick prophesied that universities would become hollow echoes of their former selves:
“In the warrens under the ruins of the great universities the student populations gradually gave up their futile attempts to maintain life as they understood it, and voluntarily–for the most part–entered forced-labor camps. So the dregs of the Second Civil War gradually ebbed away, and in 2004, as a pilot model, Columbia University was rebuilt and a safe, sane student body allowed to attend its police-sanctioned courses.”
Cornell’s administration has already rewritten its Expressive Activity Policy to herd dissenters into police-sanctioned and administrator-micromanaged protests; they have set arrest quotas for students protesting genocide in Gaza; they are funding the genocide itself; they’ve caved on diversity initiatives and gender-affirming care; and they are promoting ICE recruitment on campus. This road leads only one way. We must take back our University. Join us this Thursday from 12-1pm on Ho Plaza with a march to Day Hall!
In resistance,
Cornell on Fire
*Asterisks indicate where supplemental notes can be found by scrolling below. You can like this post and others on Instagram and Mastodon.
Take action with us!
Take Back our University! Rally on Thursday, August 28, 12-1pm: Rally at Ho Plaza with march to Day Hall. We must STAND UP, SPEAK OUT, AND RESIST REPRESSION in the US, Gaza, and around the world! Fall semester at Cornell is launching in the face of "acute fiscal pressures," staff cuts, and hiring restrictions. Campus groups are ready with their message: “Take Back Our University!”Please share widely with your networks! Co-sponsored by the Cornell Chapter of the AAUP, the Cornell Coalition for Justice in Palestine, Cornell Graduate Students United-UE, Cornell on Fire, and Jewish Voice for Peace.
ECOFest: Meet Cornell on Fire student activists on Sunday, August 31, from 1-3pm on the RPCC North Campus Quad. Learn more about our campaign for a Fossil Free Degree and get involved to help us win!
Art-ivism Exhibit: Drop by the storefronts at 115-121 S Cayuga Street (near the Commons) to engage with our provocative art exhibit to end climate silence, name climate criminals, and stop billionaires. Exhibit opening tentatively scheduled for Friday, September 5, from 5-8pm as part of Ithaca’s Gallery Night: join this opportunity to explore the stories behind our art-ivism!
Interested in joining our Working Group? We meet weekly and actively welcome new perspectives! Everyone can contribute to our campus-community coalition: students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community members. Fill out our interest form or reach out at connect@cornellonfire.org.
Engage the Wider Movement:
Demilitarize Cornell Campaign: Join the campaign to DEMILITARIZE Cornell! A fall semester campaign by the Progressives in solidarity with Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell. Plug in at the Progressives Gbody meetings on Mondays at 4:30pm in Rockefeller 103 or by following them on Instagram @cuprogessives. (A campaign in solidarity with, but not in coordination with, Students for Justice in Palestine at Cornell, which was suspended in March for alleged involvement in protesting war criminals.)
A better world is possible with CornellYDSA: Join the work of Cornell Democratic Socialists in advocating for labor justice, queer solidarity, fighting capitalist inequality, and supporting other leftist movements! Get involved at weekly Gbody meetings at 6pm on Mondays at Anabel Taylor B27 (room may shift to larger space), or follow them on Instagram at @cornellydsa.
Stop Billionaires Summer: Follow the summer of heat actions from Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island. Cornell on Fire and Extinction Rebellion Ithaca are collaborating in these events - message us to get involved!
Extinction Rebellion Climate Vigils 11am every Saturday at Chase Bank - the worst bank on Earth - at the East end of the Ithaca Commons.
In case you missed it. Catch up on our latest work:
Check out our latest communications:
Read the press coverage of our activities over the last months.
What were we up to all summer? Stopping billionaires, ending climate silence, and protesting Cornell’s repression of free speech! Follow our latest actions on social media:
Our art installation is now live! A provocative exhibit to end climate silence, name climate criminals, and stop billionaires. (On Instagram)
Footage release: Climate Activists Silenced and Threatened by Cornell Police (video on Instagram and YouTube)
Short film: Don’t Cross the Line (video on Instagram and YouTube)
Stop Billionaires street-art campaign launch - Ithaca (video on Instagram and YouTube). Follow our latest wheatpasting updates on Instagram and Mastodon.
Supplemental Notes
*On ultra-rich donors: As the profiteers of an ecocidal capitalist system, most of these ultra-rich donors should be paying mandatory carbon reparations rather than making discretionary “philanthropic” donations.
*On the need for democratic governance: There is always an acute risk that the senior administration’s view of Cornell’s most pressing survival needs may not match those of the University community. According to forthcoming research by Cornell Contingent Academic Workers, senior administration found it wise to spend $50 million dollars over the past 6 years on pay raises for 15 (correct - only fifteen) “key employees and officers.” Would the university community have found better uses for that $50 million? Absolutely. And to those who argue that we “need” to offer obscene pay raises to compete with other universities for the “best” candidates to senior administration positions: This plan isn’t working. We do not have the senior administrators we want and deserve. We deserve administrators who value mission over profit, and who care about the University as a University, not a personal source of wealth and status signaling.
*Cornell’s behavior gives no indication that they believe in a climate emergency: Cornell the Corporation fixates on what it can afford with its dollars while studiously ignoring the carbon pollution that earth can ill-afford to sustain. If you observed the emissions and spending behavior of Cornell, you could reasonably conclude that they do not believe climate change is real: Spending over $330 million to expand their campus footprint with new fossil-fuel-heated construction projects (planned or active in 2024) when they could have used that money to decarbonize campus with Earth Source Heat; spending millions to expand toxic plastic athletic fields at cost to the local environment and athletes’ health; failing to reduce their emissions since 2008; and declaring on the basis of misinformation from Big Oil’s playbook that it will not be prudent to decarbonize campus heat “for the foreseeable future.”
Thank you for reading this far and engaging in the number-one frontline for climate action: your attention.
Newsletter #20 originally published on August 27, 2025.
