In the late 1970s, Cornell began accepting chapters of national Greek letter organizations that targeted members from Black, Latinx and Asian-American groups. With three exceptions, these chapters have not offered a residential experience to their members. Cornell’s purchase of 301 College Avenue may be Cornell’s last opportunity to provide such groups with housing.
Regulation of Greek Life
Cornell’s fraternities date back to 1868, the year that Cornell first opened. Cornell did not have significant men’s dorms until the 1920s, with students living in boarding houses and fraternities in the interim. In the fall of 1875, Sage College opened for female students, and in 1884, the Trustees voted to require all female students to live in Sage, or the other women’s dorms as they were built. As sorority houses opened, the rule was modified to require residence in either a women’s dorm or sorority house.
Men’s fraternities are members of the Interfraternity Council (IFC) and women’s sororities are members of the Panhellenic Council (PanHel). The IFC and PanHel in turn belong to national groups. In the early 1980s, Cornell faced pressure to accept local chapters of the Divine Nine set of historically black fraternities and sororities. Additionally, new Greek letter organizations were forming to serve Latinx and Asian-American students. Instead of forming three separate councils for those chapters, Cornell formed what is now called the Multicultural Greek & Fraternal Council (MGFC). With three exceptions, the MGFC did not offer residential housing.
Over the years, many minority students questioned why the historically white Greek groups had elaborate chapter houses, while most MGFC groups did not have any housing options. In general, as Cornell-owned fraternity houses became available, they were converted into co-ops, a special house for military veterans and a multicultural living center, rather than given to any of these MGFC chapters.
One reason is that MGFC chapters failed to recruit a large number of members with some chapters shrinking to as low as three members, and in some cases Cornell ending the chapters as they reported their membership had dropped to zero members. In response to this, the MGFC chapters claimed that a lack of housing hindered their recruitment efforts.
The lack of housing was not the result of lack of alumni funding or a lack of advisory staff. The MGFC Advisor was available each year, and the staff dedicated to facilities and financial issues within the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life (OSFL) was available to all Greek Life chapters, including MGFC chapters.
But Cornell steered alumni donations away from MGFC housing. For example, Lambda Upsilon Lambda was founded at Cornell in 1982. In 2015, their alumni embarked on a fundraising campaign, which raised $100,000 by 2019. Instead of using the funds for a down payment for purchasing a chapter house, Cornell persuaded them to donate it to fund an endowment for the Latino Living Center and its programming.
Alpha Phi Alpha, which was the nation’s first black fraternity, was founded at Cornell in 1906, used rented housing for their members. When the TKE fraternity house at 105 Westbourne Lane came on the market, an alumni group purchased the house with a plan to renovate and have it house the APA brothers. Reportedly, the cost exceeded $3 million. On October 18, Alpha Phi Alpha dedicated its new house, with Cornell publicity noting that the facility is open to people of all races.
Non-discrimination
About one-third of all greek organizations lease their houses from Cornell, who acquired various group houses over the years. Cornell requires non-discrimination in all of its housing. Local, state and federal fair housing laws apply as well. These laws prevent a landlord from refusing to rent to a resident based upon race, religion or ethnic origin. However, a house for a club can be restricted to just members of that club.
The Trump Administration has gone further. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a July 29 memo that specifically prohibits:
“Segregation in Facilities or Resources: A college receiving federal funds designates a ‘BIPOC-only study lounge,’ facially discouraging access by students of other races. Even if access is technically open to all, the identity-based focus creates a perception of segregation and may foster a hostile environment. This extends to any resource allocation-such as study spaces, computer labs, or event venues-that segregates access based on protected characteristics, even if intended to create ‘safe spaces.’”
So, a building restricted to the members of one organization may pass the Fair Housing Laws but may still violate the Trump Administration’s reading of the Civil Rights laws.
Although all Cornell organizations, including the MGFC chapters, are subject to the same non-discrimination requirements, Cornell OSFL imposes more rigorous oversight on IFC, PanHel and MGFC. Each chapter is required to pay dues to fund their annual council budgets. In turn the IFC, PanHel and MGFC are required to pay dues to fund “Tri-Council” joint activities.
The MGFC receives an annual appropriation from the Student Activity Fee of $2 per undergraduate student, amounting to about $32,000. OSFL manages the Tri-Council budget in a way that places a disproportionate financial burden on IFC chapters, effectively using their contributions to subsidize MGFC programming.
301 College Avenue
In 1998, 301 College Ave was built as a rental apartment building. It was purchased by a local rental property investor group in 2017 for $15 million. In February 2024, Tompkins Community Bank foreclosed on the property due to unpaid mortgage debts, and Cornell purchased the building for $15 million. Since the purchase, Cornell has honored the leases on the residents’ apartments. The building has 100 beds in units varying in size from studios to 6 bedrooms. The building’s location makes it a very desirable place for students to live.
Cornell must now lease the units for the 2026-27 academic year, without being constrained by the leases it inherited from the prior owner. Advocates for the MGFC see this as the last opportunity to provide their chapters with housing, because most of their chapters could fit into one or two apartments, and no other groups have prior claims on those apartments. Even if specific units were filled with people from one identity group, the overall demographics of 301 College Ave would be mixed as a combination of white, black, Latinx and Asian-American students. In this manner, Cornell would be in compliance with Fair Housing Laws.
The scope and mission of OSFL has shifted over the years. OSFL owes its existence to the special support that is needed for fraternities and sororities as residential organizations. Later, its scope was expanded to include Cornell-owned co-ops (which are also residential). In recent years, co-op supervision was moved to Residential Life, leaving OSFL supervising IFC, PanHel, and both the residential and non-residential chapters of MGFC.
There is no policy justification for subjecting non-residential MGFC chapters to OSFL’s regulatory framework, as these chapters function similarly to the more than 1,000 other registered student organizations.
Without access to dedicated residential space, it becomes increasingly difficult for Cornell to defend OSFL’s oversight of MGFC chapters under the anti-discrimination guidelines established by the Trump Administration.
Cornell has instead announced that all rooms in 301 College Ave will be administered through the Residence Life office instead of by OSFL. As a result, all students will be allowed to select those rooms in the lottery for 2026-27, instead of giving MGFC chapters a preference.
