Cornell Trustee Elections: University Breaks Its Own Election Rules
Cornell University touts its trustee elections as a cherished tradition that allows graduates to have a voice in the governance of their alma mater. However, recent disappointing actions by the university administration have raised serious concerns about the integrity of this democratic process.
In what appears to be a calculated effort to control the outcome of the 2025 alumni trustee election (it takes place electronically from February 1-28), Cornell has not only failed to live up to its own standards by establishing restrictive rules limiting candidate communication, but it has also selectively circumvented these very rules to benefit its preferred candidates.
First, Cornell established rules decades ago that explicitly prohibit any campaigning by alumni trustee candidates. This no-campaign rule effectively bars all discussion between alumni and candidates, placing control of election-related discourse firmly in the hands of the university administration.
However, Cornell's actions during the current election cycle reveal a troubling pattern of selective rule enforcement:
- The administration has restricted and controlled which questions candidates may address, limiting meaningful dialogue about important university issues.
- Most egregiously, Cornell sent a “get-out-the-vote” email, labeled as a “volunteer toolkit,” to a carefully curated group of alumni who could be counted on to support administration-endorsed candidates.
- Meanwhile, other alumni and candidates remain bound by the strict no-campaigning rules, creating an uneven playing field that favors establishment candidates.
These events are particularly disheartening to me as an alumnus and as a member of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, a group of alumni volunteers interested in protecting free speech and open inquiry at Cornell and upholding Cornell’s high academic standards. CFSA outlined our view of proposed reforms needed at Cornell in our August 2023 report Lifting The Fog - Restoring Academic Freedom & Free Expression at Cornell University.
Two CFSA members, Cindy Crawford and Ken Davis, are running in the 2025 election as alumni-petitioned candidates (“unendorsed” by Cornell). CFSA considers Cornell’s “endorsed /unendorsed” alumni trustee candidate designations and its “no campaigning” rules as unfair and designed to favor candidates hand-picked by Cornell’ s administration. Nonetheless, CFSA adhered to Cornell’s rules, submitting all of our draft communications to Cornell’s Division of Alumni Affairs for approval.
At a February 4th virtual “Trustee Talk,” alumni trustee Andrea Van Schoick defended Cornell's election rules. Van Schoick—a beneficiary of these rules—claimed the no-campaign policy ensures fairness, especially for candidates who can't afford to campaign. She explained that the Committee on Alumni Trustee Nominations (CATN), a 28-member alumni committee, screens and endorses four candidates based on their qualifications and board priorities. “Unendorsed” candidates bypass this screening process by petition, though Van Schoick maintained all candidates have equal opportunities to share their information once on the ballot.
She did not elaborate that CATN’s membership list contains 14 members representing the colleges, four from alumni groups not focused on personal identity, six representing race-, ethnicity-, or sexuality-based identity groups, one each from student, campus governance, fundraising groups, and from the Board of Trustees itself. CATN’s makeup seems designed to maximize the influence of identity groups and Cornell insiders.
Ms. Van Schoick then said something that cast doubt on Cornell’s adherence to its own rules: She inadvertently admitted Cornell was sending a get-out-the-vote email, disguised as a “toolkit,” to a select subset of alumni. This, while prohibiting its alumni from doing the same.
I had not received such an email, so I requested clarification about the intended recipients from Cornell Division of Alumni Affairs, who confirmed that this webpage listing Cornell volunteer communities reflects the audience for volunteer communications. The “Volunteer Leadership Communities” receiving the email included the Board of Trustees, the CATN, and various identity groups that constitute membership in the CATN!
By sending the toolkit to a selectively curated audience, Cornell manipulated its rules to encourage friendly alumni to vote for Cornell-endorsed candidates while stifling the voices of unendorsed candidates who might pose a challenge to Cornell’s administration. If the administration is willing to break its own rules to prevent just two unendorsed candidates from being elected, what is to stop the administration from manipulating the vote counting? Who is watching over this process?
After pontificating about diversity for years, why is the administration so afraid that two unendorsed trustees with divergent viewpoints might be elected? It seems the administration seeks 100% support and conformity from the Board of Trustees. Rather than a deliberative body with a variety of viewpoints, the administration is sadly willing to bend its own rules to create the board it wants: a 64-member cheerleading squad.
