The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/department-of-education/)
The new Free Application for Federal Student Aid raises questions over the form’s elimination of financial considerations such as student’s number of siblings in college and eligibility calculations.
The U.S. Department of Education announced Cornell is a subject of an investigation into violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in connection with antisemitic and anti-Muslim harassment.
The Secretary of Education Betsy Devos announced regulations that must be enacted by Aug. 14, leaving colleges with only a few months to comply.
Cornell is set to receive $12.8 million in federal grant money as part of a relief bill meant to ease financial burdens on higher education institutions.
While summer pursuits were occupying many a Cornellian, a jarring story dropped back here on the Hill. In a July 3 letter to President Martha Pollack, the Department of Education suggested Cornell may have violated the Higher Education Act of 1965. The University’s alleged misdeed? A failure to duly disclose financial relationships with China and Qatar. Last March, after The Sun uncovered lucrative research arrangements between Cornell and the Chinese telecom firm Huawei, the University assured us there was nothing to worry about.
The University has received over $65 million in contracts and gifts from Qatar between 2012 and 2018.
Thursday’s news that Cornell quietly took millions in research contracts from Chinese telecom firm Huawei is alarming enough. But the University’s refusal to provide details about said contracts makes for an utter transparency failure. Cornell must acknowledge the perils of working with a firm wedded to China’s autocracy — and reveal the nature of its Huawei ties. Public data from the Department of Education shows that Cornell took $5.3 million from Huawei in 2017 via two research contracts. That’s troubling.
“Every survivor of sexual violence must be taken seriously, and every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not predetermined,” wrote Betsy DeVos, secretary of education, in a press release last month. The Federal Department of Education released a new set of proposed regulations that will shape sexual harassment policy.
With 199 incidents, Cornell has almost twice the number of incidents reported by students at New York University, which is second on the list with 100 incidents, followed by the University at Albany, with 61.
DeVos will reportedly focus on Title IX policy, which remains controversial at Cornell and beyond.