On January 28, 2026, Dr. Colin Wright, a PhD in evolutionary biology, sued Cornell, alleging that he had not been hired because he was white. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, seeking an injunction against its discriminatory hiring practices and unstated punitive monetary damages.
The lawsuit stemmed from a disclosure by conservative activist Christopher Rufo of an internal email from Jeremy B. Searle, Chair of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (E&EB), proposing a “diversity hire” for a tenure-track position in that department.
Typically, Cornell tightly rations tenure-track positions because of the long-term financial commitment to the college’s academic budget. Tenure-track positions generally are not hired until someone leaves, and even then, there is the potential that a college dean might reallocate the salary line item to a different department.
Cornell has outlined its long history of affirmative action on a web page. However, during President Martha Pollock’s administration, instead of allocating all incremental funds to the faculty compensation pool, a portion was held back to create a financial incentive plan to encourage minority hiring. In other words, departments were put in the position of not having the resources to hire new faculty unless they could access the minority hiring fund.
According to the lawsuit, E&EB compiled a list of 25 non-white evolutionary biologists without posting a job opening as required by Cornell’s policies. It then interviewed them one at a time so as to prevent any feeling of competition between the candidates. Dr. Wright never applied for the position because it was never posted. Ultimately, Cornell hired one of the minority candidates on its list.
In 2019-20, Dr. Wright applied to a large number of universities for a job, including Cornell’s Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. When Dr. Wright learned of the Searle email through Rufo’s reporting, he filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While that complaint was pending, Cornell conducted negotiations with the Trump Administration to settle its outstanding disputes. The November settlement excluded Wright’s EEOC complaint from the settlement package. President Kotlikoff viewed the EEOC complaint as not having merit and speculative as to the harm suffered. So, Cornell took its chances by excluding the claim from the overall settlement package.
On January 26, 2026, the EEOC concluded its investigation by issuing a Notice of Right to Sue, which allows Dr. Wright to go to district court to pursue his Title VII claim against Cornell.
Dr. Wright must prove his damages and that he should have been hired instead of the minority faculty member based on academic merit. In general, courts are reluctant to second-guess academic hiring decisions.
