Republican View: Cornell’s conundrum

The ongoing UAW strike at Cornell University has spotlighted the institution’s financial practices. Cornell’s endowment, valued at approximately $10 billion, is widely recognized, as is the fact that the university owns around half of the land in Ithaca—worth about $2 billion—on which it pays no taxes. Recent disputes, such as last year’s battle over the university’s PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) contribution to the City and its underfunding of TCAT during the pandemic, have demonstrated Cornell’s disregard for the well-being of the local community. It appears this disregard extends to its own employees. As of this writing, the strike’s disruptions have prompted Cornell to return to negotiations. It is heartening to see the Cornell UAW workers adopting a level of assertiveness that local elected officials have yet to match. As of this writing, Mike Sigler is the only elected official to join the picket line. Hopefully, this strike will set a precedent for them.

Budget season has commenced. Earlier this month, Tompkins County voted to raise its tax cap, overriding a previous decision to not do so.  A bipartisan coalition of Sigler, Shurtleff, Brooks, Mezey, and Brown continued to oppose the move. The Ithaca Common Council is also moving to raise the tax cap for the city. As the 2025 budgets are developed, significant cuts and higher taxes seem inevitable. One potential casualty is the Community Justice Center, a new institution established in response to Executive Order 203 following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent Reimagining Public Safety initiative. While Cornell is not solely responsible for this financial strain, it is a major contributing factor. The university owns vast amounts of property in the county, much of which is outside Ithaca’s city limits and also not subject to taxation.

Cornell’s impact extends well beyond Ithaca and Tompkins County. Its reach includes Weill Medical facilities in New York City and Qatar, as well as partnerships with educational institutions in mainland China. The recent visit by the Dalai Lama has drawn attention to Cornell’s connections with China. Since fleeing China’s occupation of Tibet in 1959, the Dalai Lama has lived in exile, while Tibetans under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule face severe repression, including surveillance and forced assimilation through “boarding schools.” Despite the Dalai Lama’s visits to Cornell and the presence of a sizable Tibetan community and the Namgyal Monastery on South Hill, Cornell has not publicly supported the Tibetan cause, likely due to concerns about jeopardizing its relationship with the CCP and the substantial revenue it generates from Chinese students both locally and abroad. 

A similar issue arises with the plight of the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. This Muslim minority group suffers ethnic cleansing through imprisonment, forced labor, and cultural eradication at the hands of the CCP. This repression extends to Cornell’s campus, where a speaking engagement by Uyghur graduate Rizwangul NurMuhammad was disrupted by nationalist Chinese students in March 2022. Cornell’s tepid response, essentially apologizing to the disruptive students, was indicative of its reluctance to confront CCP abuses.

I have long believed that Cornell’s aversion to negative publicity is second only to its reluctance to spend money. The UAW strike is currently testing this theory. It is my hope that our elected leaders will take a cue from the UAW’s example. Human rights issues in Tibet, Xinjiang, and the threat of CCP aggression toward Taiwan should be leveraged to highlight Cornell’s hypocrisy and disregard for human suffering, whether it involves low wages or genocide. I have suggested to the Legislature that they consider imposing a tax on Cornell’s endowment. While this would likely lead to litigation, the mere threat could pressure the administration and generate unfavorable media coverage. In the short term, actions such as renaming streets on Cornell’s campus to reflect negatively on the university, auctioning naming rights to institutions like Yale or Harvard, redirecting TCAT buses to avoid campus, constructing a planned county homeless shelter adjacent to Cornell property, or seeking donations from other Ivy League institutions as a mechanism to shame Cornell, could be considered. Achieving results is simply a matter of will.