“In my class, yet again, I was the only person with their hand up,” said Aleesia Dillon ’25, co-president of the Native American and Indigenous Students at Cornell, recalling when members of one of her classes were asked to raise their hands if they were Native American.
In 2020, Avery August, the chair of the Presidential Advisors on Diversity and Equity pledged to support increased Native American student recruitment, but student leaders say the University has made little progress.
Following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to overturn affirmative action, Cornell reported decreased enrollment for underrepresented minority groups including Black, Hispanic and Native American students. The Native American student enrollment dropped to one percent for the Class of 2028 from 1.8 percent for the Class of 2027.
The Sun spoke to Cornell University’s Native American student leaders, who expressed disappointment with the University’s efforts to recruit and retain Indigenous students and faculty.
University Initiatives to Increase Indigenous Enrollment
According to Lisa Nishii, vice provost for both undergraduate education and enrollment, the University has taken steps to increase Native American enrollment, including hiring a recruiter that specializes in Indigenous outreach, attending Indigenous college fairs, visiting high schools with significant Indigenous populations and participating in Native American college access programs.
Cornell is partnered with College Horizons, a pre-college program for Native American high schoolers, and hosts events like Promising Futures, an in-person recruitment event for Native American students, through the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program.
When asked about challenges in recruitment, Nishii wrote that “Indigenous students are a small percentage of the U.S. population,” and that many high schools with higher populations of Native American students are under-resourced and sometimes do not offer certain courses that are prerequisites for admission to Cornell. She also wrote that the schools with higher populations of Native American students are often challenging to visit in person, either because they are in rural areas, or because Native American students are dispersed across larger urban areas.
Nishii wrote that the University is currently “in the process” of modifying its recruitment plan to effectively reach more Native American students.
“We are not satisfied with progress so far,” Nishii wrote to The Sun. “We sincerely want to grow the size of the Indigenous student population at Cornell. We are committing to aggressive and affirmative efforts to make this happen.”
The University has made similar statements in the past regarding increased recruitment efforts.
In October 2020, the Student Assembly passed Resolution 7, which, along with other demands for Native American representation and support, called for the University to maintain a Native American student enrollment of 1.7 percent — equal to the proportion of Native American people in the United States based on the 2010 U.S. Census. The census reported nearly double as many Native American people in the 2020 U.S. Census potentially partly due to differences in the race question tabulation process.
Former University president Martha Pollack and deputy provost and presidential advisor on diversity and equality Avery August responded to the Assembly’s resolution, acknowledging Indigenous students and faculty broadly.
“We are looking for additional ways to acknowledge the history between Cornell and American Indian and Indigenous peoples,” Pollack wrote in her response. “We continue to serve members of all communities through research, teaching and public engagement.”
‘The Words Are There, But the Actions Are Not’
Despite Pollack’s 2020 statements, Dillon said little has changed.
“Time and time again, as history proves, the words are there, but the actions are not,” Dillon said. “My opinion on Martha Pollack’s 2020 statement on Indigenous students is that it's just another set of empty promises.”
Peter Iotenerah’tate:nion Thais ’25, co-president of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, said that he is concerned about the future of Native American and Indigenous students at Cornell.
“The overall acceptance rates brought forth by University admissions is incredibly disheartening,” Thais said. “I am concerned about the decrease in Indigenous students at this University who come after me. This is in direct opposition to President Pollack's commitment ‘to serve members of all communities through research, teaching and public engagement.’"
In their responses to the resolution, Pollack and August also acknowledged the Morrill Act of 1862, which distributed public land — often obtained through seizures of native land by the federal government — to land-grant institutions including Cornell. The University raised almost $6 million from Ojibwe, Miwok, Yokut and Dakota land acquired through 63 treaties or seizures, making him the single largest beneficiary of the act with around 980,000 expropriated acres from over 230 Indigenous peoples.
The dispossession of land was violent and destructive to the millions of Indigenous people who lived there.
In Pollack’s response, she mentioned the act’s “laudable ideals,” and August wrote that “there is much to be proud of in our land grant history,” before addressing the dispossession of land. Cannon Cline ’25, co-president of AISES, said that they unrightfully praised the Act.
“This Act was one of many examples of the genocide of Indigenous people in this country,” Cline said. “To frame any aspect of it as a source of pride is to partake in the white-washing of Indigenous genocide and dispossession.”
Aidan Solomon ’25, co-president of NAISAC, said that, overall, the administration’s responses to the resolution offered little promise.
“I feel that most of the statements put out are just put out so that the University can say that they made an effort,” Solomon said. “I have seen very little change in my time at Cornell.”
Why a Native American Professor Left Cornell
In addition to Pollack’s statement, August addressed diversifying Cornell’s faculty and student body in his response. He said the University “[has] worked to develop new policies for the recruitment” of Native American students and staff. In his response, August announced that Cornell would welcome two new faculty members who would work in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program in 2021.
One of these hires, former professor Jodi Byrd, left Cornell earlier this year.
“I am no longer faculty at Cornell in part because Cornell has shown no substantive commitment to Indigenous studies, to Indigenous faculty or to Indigenous students institutionally beyond what Indigenous staff and faculty have been able to bring to AIISP,” Byrd wrote to The Sun. “Cornell continually assumes Indigenous studies is merely advocacy and its sole role is student support services."
Byrd is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma and said they were not informed that their hire was part of an initiative to increase Indigenous representation.
“My hire was a targeted hire in Literatures in English to meet a curricular need and departmental commitment to having an American Indian scholar whose work focused on American Indian literary studies,” Byrd wrote to The Sun. “I only found out after I arrived in 2021 that the administration was suggesting my hire was somehow supposed to be some form of redress on their part and in support of student recruitment.”
Even within the AIISP, most of the faculty are not Indigenous, Byrd wrote.
Byrd now teaches at the Department of Race, Diaspora and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago.
Concerns for the Future
This year’s seniors comprise a large part of the Native American students on campus, Dillon said. With few Indigenous faculty members and a declining Indigenous enrollment, the co-presidents of NAISAC said they worry about representation after the seniors graduate. Specifically, Dillon said she sees the sense of community for Native American students at Cornell taking a hit.
“This future is less and less Indigenous students on Cornell campus,” Dillon said. “[This will] ultimately lead to less engagement, a loss of community and sense of belonging here.”
Averie Perrin ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at amp444@cornell.edu.
Correction, Nov. 1, 9:32 p.m.: A previous version of this article incorrectly described Cornell’s actions through the Morrill Act of 1862.
