A fog of anti-academic populism has rolled over the federal government. Universities have become targets of outrage. The status of radical campus protesters and professors is under threat. And Cornell searches for its next president.
This was the state of play in 1950.
Back then, the nation was gripped with pervasive anti-communist fear, which was accelerated by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s populist, nationalist, anti-Semitic purge of government employees, entertainers, academics and others. In the midst of this “red scare,” the Cornell Board of Trustees sought and found a new president — one who needed to stand against the threats of academic freedom.
Today, however, as the shadow of President Donald Trump’s quest for authoritarian power descends on our country and threatens the college campus as a bastion of free thought, the Trustees are again searching for a new president — and they must take their cue from history.
McCarthyism was a disease that infected the entire country, all of academia, and reared its ugly head at Cornell while the University was under the leadership of an interim president. McCarthyism took shape on Cornell’s campus with congressional scrutiny of faculty members like Professor Phillip Morrison. Morrison — a progressive physicist who opposed the United States monopolizing nuclear secrets and American use of the H-bomb — was heavily investigated and audited by House and Senate committees. Morrison, who had flirted with communism as an undergraduate, had become a pacifist after his work on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. Many saw him as a gift to academia because of his defense of conscience in nuclear science; anti-communist forces saw that as treasonous.
While weathering these attacks on education, Cornell’s Board of Trustees settled on Deane Waldo Malott to serve as the University’s sixth president for his combination of academic, administrative and business expertise. Malott inherited the mess that McCarthy had dropped on Cornell and tactfully cleaned it up.
Malott, a self-proclaimed conservative, was not a fan of what he once called “leftists.” But while he may not have agreed with the campus issues of the day, Malott was committed to protecting the institution of academic freedom as a whole. He privately advised Professor Morrison to curtail attention-drawing activism while publicly reassuring the faculty and trustees that Morrison’s political beliefs never biased his classroom or laboratory work. Malott used his power to reduce the public stir around Morrison while defending the University from external attacks. In this light, he asked “thinking citizens to stand behind the principles of freedom of thought and expression.”
Malott withstood the pressure of reactionaries: faculty, alumni and the Board of Trustees demanded he purge Cornell’s ranks of professors and graduate students of suspected communists. Malott's leadership in retaining Morrison as a professor preserved academic freedom while defending our institution from the federal government's pressures.
Today, anti-academic sentiments reminiscent of McCarthyism are no longer in the rearview mirror, and neither is Cornell’s choice in leadership. With the election of Donald Trump, academia is once again under fire from the highest levels of the federal government. In his first term, President Trump looked to deny academic research funding to universities that didn’t align with his free speech objectives. He has threatened to deport controversial campus protesters. And he’s hinted at abolishing the Department of Education.
But in 2026, Michael Kotlikoff, who has kept the school on a steady course, will end his term as Cornell’s interim president and a new executive, chosen by the Board of Trustees, will take the helm. He or she will be met with a situation not completely dissimilar from the one Malott found in 1951. While the dogmatic anti-communist pressure of the 1950s has not returned, we now face new struggles.
Cornell’s 15th president will enter Day Hall under a Trump administration openly hostile to progressive thinkers and protesters much like Joseph McCarthy was. The president will be met with controversial and outspoken professors like Eric Cheyfitz and Russell Rickford who draw public ire, much like Phillip Morrison. They will find a faculty, Board of Trustees and donor base eager to exert their influence over the policy decisions of the University, much like those of the 1950s.
Yes, we’re in his crosshairs. But despite what Trump attempts to force on academia, the Cornell Trustees have the power to choose a University leader who will resist the whims of a would-be tyrant. They must use it.
With Malott in mind, the next president will need to set a hard line and stick to it under the hostile gaze of the Trump administration. He or she must thoroughly defend the principles of academic freedom from government interference without drawing too much attention to our campus, a difficult task.
Whether they’re a conservative like Malott, a Democrat, or somewhere in the middle, I want our next University president to defend our right to academic freedom against the aggressive and minimally restrained occupant of the White House.
Trustees, the most urgent quality you must search for in our next president is courage. Cornell has weathered the political storm before, and we must do it again. Just as your predecessors in 1951 chose Malott and secured Cornell’s legacy for the next 75 years, you, too, must meet the moment.
Henry Schechter is the Opinion Editor at The Sun. He is a third-year student in the College of Arts & Sciences. His fortnightly column Onward focuses on politics, history and how they come together in Ithaca. He can be reached at hschechter@cornellsun.com.
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