UPDATED
America First Policy Institute on Thursday filed a civil rights complaint against Cornell University, alleging the Ivy League institution illegally hired based on DEI metrics — passing over far more qualified applicants to advance equity.
The eight-page complaint, a copy of which was provided to The College Fix on Thursday, was lodged with the Department of Justice and Education Department. It included copies of two bombshell emails provided by an unnamed Cornell whistleblower to back up its allegations.
In one email, a redacted STEM department chair spells out a “diversity hire” process that elevated one candidate over all others. In the second email, it details how all candidates for a position were prescreened based on their DEI statements and how highly qualified candidates were axed from consideration.
?BREAKING: America First Policy Institute this afternoon filed a civil rights complaint against Cornell alleging the Ivy League school illegally hired based on DEI metrics.
The 8-page complaint to the DOJ and Ed. Dept. that I just reviewed includes copies of *two bombshell…
— Jennifer Kabbany (@JenniferKabbany) June 26, 2025
The complaint calls on an investigation by the Office for Civil Rights.
“Cornell’s race-, sex-, and ethnicity-based practices have not only led to explicit acts of discrimination in hiring and scholarship decisions, they have also created a hostile environment that violates the civil rights of students, faculty, and staff who do not share the institutionally favored ideological views,” the institute stated in the memo.
Cornell has denied many of the charges leveled against it.
“The university strongly disputes the allegations in the America First Policy Institute complaint that references a number of outdated websites or programs that have not been in use for many years. Over the past year, the university has further enhanced its compliance with civil rights laws by engaging outside law firms to audit policy and practices to reflect changes in law or regulations, taking swift corrective action where necessary,” Monica Yant Kinney, interim vice president for university relations, said in a published statement.
“…In thousands of hiring decisions in hundreds of departments and units, misunderstandings of policies can occur. If discrimination or bias is observed at any stage in any hiring process, it should be reported and will be corrected. The university does not tolerate unlawful discrimination in hiring or any other aspect of any university program or practice, and the university has taken and will continue to take prompt, effective, and appropriate action to respond to any and all allegations of any violation of law or the university’s equal opportunity and antidiscrimination policy,” she added.
“Cornell is deeply disturbed by personal attacks leveled against our faculty members. Cornell faculty members have devoted their lives to teaching, writing, and research in their fields, and they are all dedicated to providing Cornell students with a world-class education and society with advances in science, engineering, medicine, law, technology, social science, the humanities, and other areas of scholarship. Cornell faculty members are among the most learned, accomplished, and well-qualified in their respective academic disciplines,” Yant Kinney wrote.
In the first whistleblower email, dated Dec. 2020, the STEM department chair begins with explaining their conversations with a DEI dean and “our hoped-for diversity hire” and how they want to do something “a little out of the ordinary.”
It goes on to state “the best is to invite just one person” and “…not have that person in competition with others.”
The second whistleblower email is dated Dec. 2022. It states: “As pre-planned as a best practice, we first did a prescreening of just the DEI statements submitted by the candidates.”
It then goes on to state a “substantial majority of the full committee was in favor of not considering … substantially more advanced candidates, partly for reasons of equity, and this was the implemented outcome.”
The med school is also flagged in the complaint.
“At Weill Cornell Medical School, the discrimination is even more explicit. A now unavailable page on Weill Cornell’s website described a ‘Faculty Diversity Hiring Incentive Program’ that awarded direct financial bonuses based on the race and ethnicity of faculty hires,” the complaint states.
“A snapshot archived on August 27, 2024, shows that: ‘[d]epartments are eligible for up to $50,000 in subsidies for the hiring of faculty from groups that are underrepresented in medicine (URiM),’ with additional funds for hiring two URiM candidates.”
America First Policy Institute’s complaint also lists several other potential civil rights violations: “Reports of internal meetings in which faculty were discouraged from evaluating candidates on merit. When concerns were raised about the credentials of proposed hires, the Cornell faculty members who questioned the ‘diversity hire’ process were dismissed as ‘racist,’ and no further objections were tolerated.”
It also cites Cornell’s Best Practices in Faculty Mentoring page, which “reflects a race- and sex-essentialist worldview by assuming that identity categories like race and sex inherently determine professional experience, burden, and vulnerability within academic settings.”
And it lists numerous Cornell scholarships doled out based on race, sex, and ethnicity.
“The discrimination at Cornell is widespread, deliberate, and ongoing,” states Jessica Hart Steinmann and Leigh Ann O’Neill, attorneys for America First Policy Institute, who penned the complaint.
“We believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. It must be exposed and addressed without delay.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include Cornell’s response to the complaint.
MORE: Trump admin freezing $1 billion to Cornell and $790 million to Northwestern
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: An image of Cornell University’s website / Shutterstock