A biologist is suing Cornell University over allegations that the school engaged in illegal race-based hiring and intentionally excluding white candidates from consideration, according to news coverage.
The complaint, which was filed Monday in a federal district court in New York, alleges that Cornell violated federal law during a faculty hiring process in 2020, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Internal emails from the Ivy League university’s ecology and evolutionary biology department in December 2020 allegedly showed that in an effort to secure a “diversity hire,” the department extended invitations to prospective candidates selected from a list of “underrepresented minority scholars,” the outlet reported.
The plaintiff, Colin Wright, was serving as a postdoctoral researcher at Pennsylvania State University at the time, the Washington Post reported. Wright, who is white, claims he was seeking an academic role and was qualified for the position at Cornell, which he alleges the school filled without publicly posting about the job opening — as is required by university policy — according to the outlet.
Attorneys with the conservative America First Policy Institute (AFPI), who brought the lawsuit against Cornell, allege that internal documents from the school compiled a list of potential candidates who were categorized by their race, ethnicity, disability status and sexual orientation, the Post reported. Emails reportedly suggest the department was intentionally attempting to bypass having a competitive search and intended to contact candidates on an individual basis until one accepted the role, according to the outlet.
Wright did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Cornell declined to comment.
“Elite universities have grown comfortable doing in secret what they could never defend in public,” Leigh Ann O’Neill, chief legal affairs officer at AFPI, told the DCNF in a statement on Wednesday. “Cornell used a so-called ‘Diversity Axis’ to sort applicants by race, the job posting was kept hidden, and no white candidate ever had a shot—which is illegal. This case pulls back the curtain and asks a simple question: when did equality become optional?”
Wright claims he was seeking related roles in the biology field between 2018 and 2021, but did not learn about the job opening at Cornell until 2025, the Washington Post reported.
In July 2025, AFPI announced it had submitted a federal civil rights complaint and request for federal investigation against Cornell, alleging the university had engaged in “systemic discrimination in hiring, scholarships, and faculty policies” which were “driven by illegal DEI mandates,” according to a news release.
Cornell said in a June 2025 statement that it “strictly prohibits unlawful bias or discrimination and has developed policies and practices that comply with applicable laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and federal regulations that applied to federal contractors.”
Wright is currently serving as a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where he primarily writes about science, “the biology of sex and sex differences” and gender ideology, according to a bio on the think tank’s website.
Cornell is committed to recognizing individuals “with diverse backgrounds and experiences [who] bring great value to education, discovery, creativity, and engagement which is reflected in our long history of diversity and inclusion,” according to the school’s website.
In November 2025, Cornell reached an agreement with the Trump administration in order to regain the $1 billion in federal funding the administration had stripped from the school months earlier. The Trump administration had halted Cornell’s federal funding in April 2025 after alleging the university had engaged in civil rights violations related to anti-Israel protests and affirmative action policies.
As part of the agreement, the university must pay a $30 million penalty to the U.S. and also has to invest $30 million in research programs which “directly benefit U.S. farmers,” according to a Nov. 7, 2025 White House fact sheet.
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