Many of us are already aware of the decline of U.S. universities. Once, they were the bastions of liberal ideology, the pinnacles of academic achievement that produced the greatest breakthroughs in the world and some of the greatest thinkers of each generation.
They were the envy of the world.
It was a goal of many people from underclass and working-class American families, immigrants, and foreigners to send their children to be educated at one of these institutions. It was a great achievement to graduate because it meant not only a great job was waiting, along with almost assured financial success, but that students had competed and succeeded based on their abilities alone.
Was it perfect? No. Was it always a level playing field? No. As a Jew, I knew that, like many other institutions, there would be some who would make my life harder, and my goals more difficult to reach. But in the end, if I succeeded, it was as a result of my abilities and hard work.
So where did the liberal university begin and where did it die? Both occurred at the same place—my alma mater, Cornell University. It began in 1865 and it died about two weeks ago.
Cornell was founded in 1865, shortly after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act, which granted federal land to each state to set up a college for teaching greatly needed practical skills, in particular agriculture, engineering, and military tactics. It was founded by two men from highly different backgrounds, which accounts for it becoming unique among U.S. universities and setting standards that were first adopted by Stanford University, which was modeled after Cornell, and later by all American universities.
Cornell’s namesake, Ezra Cornell, was a self-taught working man—a carpenter, a mechanic, a farmer, and an inventor. He invented machinery for laying telegraph cables, worked with Samuel Morse, and created his fortune through his company, Western Union. He joined Lincoln’s abolitionist Republican Party and served as a senator for New York for many years. Cornell believed in the need for highly skilled technical people; he had little respect for philosophers and other abstract thinkers. He wanted to build an institution that would train students in practical skills so that they could be productive members of society.
Andrew Dickson White came from a wealthy family and attended Yale University. After graduation, he traveled the world and then took a position as professor of history and English literature at the University of Michigan. White also joined Lincoln’s Republican Party because of his devotion to the abolitionist movement, about which he wrote many legal arguments. He served as a diplomat to Germany, where he became fascinated with the unique German model of liberal education. White treasured the study of humanities as providing required knowledge for being good, informed citizens of our society.
These two pioneers, though different in many ways, had a common philosophy that cemented their partnership and friendship and drove their vision for creating a great university. This philosophy was enshrined in Cornell’s simple and clear motto: “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.”
While Jews were overtly and later privately restricted from admission to America’s most prestigious universities, they were openly accepted at Cornell. Each person was accepted according to their abilities, and graduation from Cornell meant that they had met the same requirements as any other Cornell graduate.
For years, these criteria were used surreptitiously. As a teenager, I was turned down for a scholarship at a prestigious school where I was informed that, while I got the highest score on the tests, I “was not the kind of person they were seeking to support.”
When Princeton accepted its one student from my high school, it was the highest achieving non-Jew in the school, skipping over 18 more qualified students. When I interviewed students for admission to Cornell, I found that the white and Asian students that I recommended were rarely accepted.
I took pride in having attended a highly respected university known for its high standards, competing and cooperating with some of the best minds in the world, and which set the bar in the United States for equal opportunity in higher education.
I believed in Cornell’s motto that even a Jewish student from a working-class family like me could attend and excel. I cherished the environment at Cornell, where I sat and befriended people of every ethnic, religious, and class background, where we conversed, debated, and partied on equal footing, without questioning how any of us got admitted or whether any of us belonged there. For me, now, that feeling of pride is gone.
My one hope is that money still matters. As a longtime donor to Cornell, I’ve made it known to the Cornell administration that they should no longer expect my dollars. I’m reaching out to other donors to do the same. Perhaps financial pressure will return Cornell to its roots of race-blind, religion-blind, and sex-blind policies, and where true freedom and equality will once again be a core value as intended by its founders.
