Cornell University President Martha Pollack is ending her 7-year tenure as the head of the Ivy League school in upstate Ithaca — following months of turmoil including demonstrations and threats to Jewish students.
The 65-year-old insisted that her departure — effective June 30 — is unrelated to the anti-Israel protests and brazen displays of antisemitism, insisting that she considered announcing her retirement in the fall and winter.
“I had to pause because of events on our and/or on other campuses,” Pollack said in her resignation statement released Thursday.
“I understand that there will be lots of speculation about my decision, so let me be as clear as I can: This decision is mine and mine alone.”
Cornell provost Michael Kotlikoff will serve as interim president beginning July 1.
In the most egregious incident, a Cornell University engineering student was arrested for threatening to kill Jews on campus last October.
Patrick Dai pleaded guilty last month to posting threatening messages to the Cornell section of an online discussion forum.
In another disturbing incident, a controversial Cornell University history professor, Russell Rickford, described Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel as “exhilarating” and “energizing.”
The mishandling of claims of antisemitism triggered the ouster of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, and now the head of New York’s other Ivy League school — Minouche Shafik of Columbia University in Manhattan — is on the heat seat over campus rioting.
One of Pollack’s campus critics greeted her announced departure with a “good riddance.”
“Cornell has been a campus in turmoil, seemingly rudderless in the face of growing antisemitism fed by hyper-aggressive anti-Israel activism, including an encampment that remains in the main quad,” said Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson, founder of the right-leaning EqualProtect.org.
“The Board also needs to introduce diversity of viewpoint among the faculty, which has become a monoculture and echo chamber of far left ideology, with almost no dissenting voices left,” he said.
Pollack said Cornell — like the rest of society — over the past few years had to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, George Floyd protests and a “terrorist attack and subsequent war that has reverberated across our country and especially across higher education.”
“The latter has raised a number of critical issues that we are all grappling with, from antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other forms of bigotry, to free expression, academic freedom, and how to foster a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community,” she said in her statement.
“I suspect many of these issues are going to be with us for years to come.”
She defended her handling of the divisive protests and threats and said Cornell has a “solid foundation” to improve upon.
“We have worked hard to uphold our commitment both to free expression and to being a community of belonging, where everyone is welcome and safe….. We have been vigilant in working to ensure the safety and well-being of all members of our community from all backgrounds, work I’ve been dedicated to long before the events of the past year,” she said.
