Timeline

  • August 26, 2020

    • DBC presents a slide deck to the Faculty Senate outlining petition demands concerning the Senate. The archived meeting agenda and minutes are available here.

  • July 31, 2020

  • July 22, 2020

    • Do Better Cornell publishes a response to Cornell President Martha Pollack's orginal statement addressing the DBC petitions.

  • July 17, 2020

    • Cornell's Society for the Humanities and Rural Humanities programs both share an article acknowledging DBC's work and detailing their own plans to launch a Rural Humanities Seminar dedicated to Rural Black Lives.

  • July 16, 2020

    • Cornell President Martha Pollack issues an official response to DBC's petitions and explains the university's trajectory for racial justice initiatives on campus.

  • July 8, 2020

    • Cornell President Martha Pollack and VP Ryan Lombardi give an informal response to the DBC petitions:
      "Thank you for taking the time to share the petitions and for your thoughts on how to make Cornell a more welcoming, equitable, and inclusive space for Black students. We are agreement with many of the good ideas in the petitions. Some of the initiatives, particularly those that are academic focused, such as the Anti-Racism institute, will require the involvement of the Faculty Senate to move forward. We will soon announce the immediate institutional steps that we'll be initiating, as well as plans that we'll be moving forward in concert with shared governance groups and other offices."

  • June 30, 2020

    • Cornell's Senior Leadership page is changed to include Professor Avery August, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs--a position he's held since the beginning of 2018--in the list of Senior Administration Officials, making him the only Black individual of its 17 members. (Note: June 30 is the first date this change was reported. Archives of the webpage as recent as June 11 do not reflect Professor August's inclusion.)

  • June 29, 2020

    • DBC launches an email campaign to publicize its petitions to Cornell's administration and board of trustees. Download the petitions from the home page and send an email!

  • June 26, 2020

    • The DBC website and two main petitions are officially presented to President Martha Pollack and the board of trustees by student leaders at a meeting with university administration.

  • June 19, 2020

  • June 18, 2020

    • Cornell's University Media Relations gives the following response when asked about student posts being untagged or blocked on social media:
      "Cornell encourages social media users to interact with the university and one another freely; however, users are expected to be respectful of fellow visitors and to adhere to online codes of conducts. Per University Policy 4.16, 'All comments are subject to social networks’ terms of use and codes of conduct. In addition, Cornell University reserves the right, but assumes no obligation, to remove any inappropriate comments."

  • June 16, 2020

    • The Cornell Daily Sun publishes an article highlighting present student frustrations with Cornell's response to an array of discriminatory acts on campus back in 2017. Many reforms and recommendations from then have yet to be implemented by the university.

  • June 15, 2020

    • Student posts on social media that tag Cornell and include #DoBetterCornell are untagged and new posts are blocked from tagging certain university accounts.

  • June 13, 2020

    • The Cornell Daily Sun publishes an article covering the two petitions and various university and student action up to this point.

  • June 12, 2020

    • Two student-made petitions are released online: one proposes the creation of university-level institutions to fight racism and promote equity on campus, and one demands specific actions through Fall 2020 to improve inclusivity, safety, and financial security for Black students.
    • Social media posts spike with the hashtag #DoBetterCornell and many share a link to sign the two petitions: https://bit.ly/DEMANDS