Our AAUP Chapter elected officers have been organizing with Cornell colleagues on an open letter from Cornell faculty about the University’s MOU with the city. Negotiations between Cornell and the city are ongoing and responsive to collective pressure. We are hoping to build visible faculty support for Cornell paying its fair share.
The below was an open letter from Cornell faculty on the Memorandum of Understanding between Cornell and the City.
Cornell University has the immense privilege of being exempt from property taxes. It enjoys this privilege due to New York State law’s treatment of nonprofit organizations, the underlying purpose of which is to help sustain institutions that will serve the public interest. The tax exemption is a public subsidy to Cornell to support its mission to provide education for the common good. The public mission of education reflects the democratic value of education, which should benefit society as a whole and should not serve as a private commodity benefiting only the individual student or faculty member.
This tax exemption — this public subsidy — heightens Cornell’s moral obligation and social duty to act as a responsible member of the communities in which it is embedded. The communities of Ithaca and Tompkins County benefit from Cornell’s presence. That is only part of the story, though. Cornell’s presence also imposes heavy financial and social costs on these communities through Cornell’s use of public services, its enjoyment of the benefits of this region, and its negative impact of raising the cost of living in Ithaca and surrounding communities. To maintain its legitimacy as an educational institution for the common good and to fulfill its moral and social obligations to contribute to the well-being of these communities, Cornell should pay its fair share to defray these heavy costs and contribute positively to the communities in which it lives.To maintain its standing as a national leader in sustainability and social progress, Cornell must show leadership in its own community by making payments commensurate with its rapid growth.
Further, as revealed by the Cornell University and Indigenous Dispossession Project, Cornell was founded on, and has profited from, Indigenous dispossession and land theft here on Gayogo̱hó:nǫɁ homelands and throughout the country. In addition to the forms of reparation called for by the Project, the University must change its extractive relationship to the communities of which we are a part.
Cornell’s privileged legal status is a prime reason why Ithaca has accumulated a large public debt, why Ithaca faces a budget deficit this year, and why Ithaca faces a sustainability crisis in the long term. For the last twenty years, Cornell has made a miserly contribution to the City of Ithaca, and even less to the wider communities in Tompkins County. Its contribution, moreover, has been heavily restricted so that much of the funding it does provide must be spent on priorities set or agreed to by Cornell, rather than on priorities established by the democratic process.
It is time for Cornell to face up to its responsibilities and to contribute its fair share. This requires Cornell to increase its payments to the City of Ithaca and other elected bodies, substantially beyond the $4 million currently on offer; to fully remove restrictions on the use of these funds; to remove prohibitions against advocating for changes to nonprofit tax law; and to agree to a more regular updating to account not just for inflation but for the growth of Cornell and new costs facing our communities.
Like many large enterprises, Cornell brings many benefits to the region. In making its case to the public, however, the University does not account for any of the costs it imposes alongside these benefits. For example, it lists the size of its payroll (as though paying employees is an act of kindness), but does not list Ithaca’s shortage of affordable housing, or the higher property taxes paid by homeowners – and by extension renters – that results from Cornell’s tax exempt status. It lists grants it has provided to small businesses, but does not consider the enormous wear on public infrastructure generated by the influx of students, parents, or alumni. It lists its investments in community organizations, but does not note the lack of public investments that results from its non-payment of taxes.
As faculty, we are members of the Cornell community. As residents of Ithaca, Lansing, Dryden, Trumansburg, and elsewhere, we are also members of a wider set of communities in Tompkins County. These communities should not be separated based on their well-being and standards of living. But as long as Cornell continues to exempt itself from its social responsibilities, to believe that unlike other major employers and property owners it can set for itself the terms upon which this responsibility is met, Cornell makes our communities separate and decidedly unequal. While Cornell might privately decide to invest in local organizations, this is not equivalent to an investment in the public services and infrastructure under community direction and control that only public governments can achieve.
Expanding public investments is an issue of racial and economic justice. Many workers, including many who are employed at Cornell, cannot afford to live in the City of Ithaca and rely on underfunded and inadequate public transportation to get to work. This visible and felt inequality makes it difficult to hire or retain workers of color. An Ithaca in which wealthier academic peers are segregated into overwhelmingly White neighborhoods while Ithaca’s historically Black neighborhoods remain cut off from Cornell’s wealth is not a welcoming environment for faculty or staff of color.
As faculty at Cornell, we take note of the university’s stated commitments to diversity. A robust commitment to diversity requires paying a fair share to the city toward improved public infrastructure and public life. Rather than dispensing financial incentives to individuals that cumulatively yield professional redlining and exacerbate inequality, we call on the university to adopt holistic approaches toward recruitment and retention that involve public investments. Substantially increasing Cornell’s payment through a PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) would be part of such a change, and could address the displacement experienced by low income and communities of color in Ithaca while creating more reciprocity between the University and the city.
We call on Cornell to do the right thing and pay its fair share to the City of Ithaca and additional communities affected by Cornell’s presence, including Dryden, Lansing, and Tompkins County. With its $10 billion endowment, Cornell can and should significantly increase its financial contribution to these communities. Cornell should engage in further negotiations to reach a fair agreement.
Cornell Chapter of the AAUP 