Cornell Accused of Blacklisting White Faculty From Tenure Track

Cornell University unlawfully excluded a White evolutionary biologist from consideration for a tenure-track position due to a confidential hiring process that favored minority applicants, a new lawsuit alleges.

Cornell intentionally bypassed its transparency policies to conduct race-based hiring in its ecology and evolutionary biology department in 2020-2021, according to Dr. Colin Wright’s complaint in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York.

Wright’s lawsuit, docketed Tuesday, cited internal emails allegedly showing that university officials created a list of 25 eligible candidates who were Black, Latina, LGBTQ+, disabled, American Indian, or Southeast Asian.

The litigation comes more than ...