In his letter to the Board of Trustees and the chairman at Cornell University in New York, Jon Lindseth calls Cornell's diversity, equity, an inclusion (DEI) commitment "misguided," and he reportedly pledges to stop contribution until the school "reformulates its approach to education" by eliminating "DEI groupthink."
He also calls for university President Martha Pollack to resign.
In response, Heather Mac Donald, an author and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says, "We're finally seeing what the phony diversity conceit has done to universities."
"I think the trends are moving in the right direction," she tells AFN. "Finally, donors and alumni are waking up to the fact that colleges are no longer performing anything remotely close to what their core obligation is, which is to pass on a civilizational inheritance."
Instead, she says they have turned into "battering rams against Western civilization."
Still, as positive as this development is, Mac Donald points out that it is going to take more than one donor at Cornell to turn things around. "It's even going to take more than simply getting rid of the diversity bureaucracy," she submits.
That, Mac Donald explains, is because the faculty themselves view Western civilization -- and only Western civilization -- through a lens that sees everything as a function of oppression.
"So, it's a start, but the road ahead is very long," she says of Lindseth's letter. "But it's better than the deliberate ignorance that has characterized most alumni and donors over the last 30 years."
Mac Donald believes institutions like Cornell are largely greedy, so more donors pulling their funding will get the attention of more leaders.
