Cornell University will pay $60 million and adopt the Trump administration’s civil rights interpretation

Good news! The Art of the Deal with an elite, leftist leaning elite university!

"... to regain $250 million in suspended federal research funding."

"Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school.

Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff announced the agreement on Friday, saying it upholds the university’s academic freedom while restoring more than $250 million in research funding that the government withheld amid investigations into alleged civil rights violations. ...

The six-page agreement is similar to one signed by the University of Virginia last month. It’s shorter and less prescriptive than others signed by Columbia University and Brown University.

It requires Cornell to comply with the government’s interpretation of civil rights laws on issues involving antisemitism, racial discrimination and transgender issues. A Justice Department memo that orders colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion programs and transgender-friendly policies will be used as a training resource for faculty and staff at Cornell.

The campus must also provide a wealth of admissions data that the government has separately sought from campuses to ensure race is no longer being considered as a factor in admissions decisions. ..."

Sunday, November 9, 2025 - Join The Flyover

Cornell University to pay $60 million in deal with Trump administration to restore federal funding

Communist Party of China squeezes Hong Kong activists in exile by interrogating Hong Kong relatives

Bad news! When will the Chinese people finally end the rule of the communist party!

The Communist Party of China has gravely violated the Hong Kong Basic Law of 1997 by annexing and occupying Hong Kong several years ago!

"Hong Kong authorities have been detaining and questioning family members of democracy activists living in exile, adopting tactics considered a hallmark of the Chinese Communist Party.

National security officers in recent weeks have taken in Hong Kong-based relatives of several activists, questioning them for hours. The activists are among a list of eight subject to bounties of up to 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($127,550) per person. Police say the activists violated national security by lobbying for sanctions against local officials. ..."

Hong Kong squeezes activists in exile by interrogating relatives - Nikkei Asia Activists say strategy is straight out of Communist Party playbook

China built the world’s largest facial recognition system. Now, it’s getting camera-shy

Civil rights are coming to Communist Party ruled China!

"China built the world's largest facial recognition system. Now, it's getting camera-shy. ...
He thought it was unreasonable for the park to use facial recognition for entry to the park, and sued the zoo for breach of contract and violation of consumer rights. The case is widely acknowledged to be the first lawsuit over facial recognition in China, and has sparked a large amount of media attention. He won the case last year but appealed with the intent to receive a broader ruling that set a precedent for similar cases, which a court ruled in favor of last week. This ruling limits the ability of private businesses to use facial recognition, which has been increasingly pervasive in China. Because of the ruling, as of Aug. 1 hotels, shopping malls, airports and other commercial venues must get consent from customers to use facial recognition. ..." (Source)

"Guo Bing, a law professor in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, liked the zoo enough to purchase an annual pass. But he didn’t like it nearly enough to let the zoo take a high-resolution scan of his face.

In what judges called the first case of its kind in China, Guo sued the zoo — and won. He argued there was no legal basis for the Hangzhou Safari Park to collect visitors’ biometric data, and that it had not taken precautions to protect the information. In April, a Chinese appeals court ruled in favor of Guo, ordering the zoo to refund him and delete his face scan and fingerprints. ..."

China built the world’s largest facial recognition system. Now, it’s getting camera-shy.

Martin Luther King Jr. On Rosa Parks

A Person Of High Character And Integrity

On December 5, 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. said in a public speech about Rosa Parks following (emphasis added):

“Just the other day, just last Thursday to be exact, one of the finest citizens in Montgomery--(Amen) not one of the finest Negro citizens (That's right), but one of the finest citizens in Montgomery--was taken from a bus (Yes) and carried to jail and arrested (Yes) because she refused to get up to give her seat to a white person. (yes, that's right) Now the press would have us believe that she refused to leave a reserved section for Negroes (Yes), but I want you to know this evening that there is no reserved section. (All right) The law has never been clarified at that point. (Hell no) Now I think I speak with legal authority--not that I have any legal authority, but I think I speak with legal authority behind me--(All right) that the law, the ordinance, the city ordinance has never been totally clarified. (That's right)

Mrs. Rosa Parks is a fine person. (Well,) And, since it had to happen, I'm happy that it happened to a person like Mrs. Parks, (Yes) for nobody can doubt the boundless outreach of her integrity. (Sure enough) Nobody can doubt the height of her character (Yes), nobody can doubt the depth of her Christian commitment and devotion to the teachings of Jesus. (All right) And I'm happy, since it had to happen, it happened to a person that nobody can call a disturbing factor in the community. (All right) Mrs. Parks is a fine Christian person, unassuming, and yet there is integrity and character there. And just because she refused to get up, she was arrested.” (Source: “Address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting” see full text here)

The Rosa Parks Event

The Rosa Parks event was well planned and organized plus Rosa Parks was planted on the bus to do what she did.

I would assume, that MLK was also fully aware of this. Thus, his long speech about Rosa Parks is somewhat disingenuous in my view.

You find my related blog posts here and here.

Why Is Rosa Parks So Much More Famous Than Irene Morgan

Irene Morgan Who?

Read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irene_Morgan

Salient excerpt from Wikipedia (Emphasis added):

“[Irene Morgan] was an African-American woman who was arrested inMiddlesex County, Virginia, in 1944 for refusing to give up her seat on an interstate bus according to a state law on segregation.

She consulted with attorneys to appeal her conviction. With the help ofWilliam H. Hastie, the former governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands and later a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel of the NAACP, her case, Irene Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946), was taken to the United States Supreme Court. In 1946 in a landmark decision, the Court ruled that the Virginia law was unconstitutional, as the Commerce clause protected interstate traffic.”

Comments

Irene Morgan refused to give up her seat 9 years earlier than Rosa Parks. Her refusal became a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not Rosa Park’s.

Ms. Parks was apparently also preceded by about two years by a Women’s Army Corps private Sarah Keys whose case also led to a landmark decision by the Interstate Commerce Commission. Ms. Keys is largely unknown as well relative to Ms. Parks, if I am not mistaken.

Perhaps Ms. Morgan Was Too Feisty To Become Famous

Wikipedia describes Ms. Morgan’s arrest as follows (Emphasis added):

“In 1944, the 27-year-old Irene Morgan was traveling to Baltimore, Maryland when she was arrested and jailed in Virginia for refusing to sit in a segregated section on an interstate Greyhound bus. ...

The bus driver stopped in Middlesex County, Virginia, and summoned the sheriff. When he tried to arrest Morgan, she tore up the arrest warrant, kicked the sheriff in the groin, and fought with the deputy who tried to pull her off the bus. She was convicted of violating state law for segregation on buses and other public transportation. Morgan pled guilty to the charge of resisting arrest and was fined $100. However, she refused the guilty plea for violating Virginia's segregation law.”

Previous, Related Blog Posts

Here.

Presidential Medal Of Honor Posthumously Awarded To Bayard Rustin

Trigger

I just (12/2/2013) read that the Harvard University announced an event at the Harvard Institute for Learning in Retirement titled “The Legacy of Bayard Rustin: Civil Rights Icon”. This is a talk by Executive Director Walter Naegle of the Bayard Rustin Fund.

PBS introduces this man in a 2003 documentary as “the life and work of a forgotten prophet of social change.”

Bayard Rustin certainly has a colorful and remarkable biography!

At the White House ceremony on November 20, 2013, President Obama presented Rustin's award to Walter Naegle, his partner of ten years.

Communism

I am not sure why a probably homosexual man would have anything to do with the Stalinist controlled communist party in the U.S. I don’t think that the Soviet communists loved homosexuals.This must have been a some kind of a delusion by any homosexual so inclined.

“Following directions from the Soviet Union, the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and its members were active in the civil rights movement for African Americans. Following Stalin's "theory of nationalism", the CPUSA once favored the creation of a separate "nation" for negroes, to be located in the American Southeast. In 1941, after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin ordered the CPUSA to abandon civil rights work and focus supporting U.S. entry into World War II.” (source).

I am not surprised that the KGB attempted to use the civil rights movements to subvert the political landscape in the U.S. I wish, one day we will learn more about it.

Bayard Rustin’s association with Socialism is probably his greatest blemish!

Speak Truth To Power

“Rustin served as an unidentified member of the American Friends Service Committee's task force to write "Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence," (Unfortunately, I did not have yet time to read it) published in 1955. This was one of the most influential and widely commented upon pacifist essays in the United States. Rustin had wanted to keep his participation quiet, as he believed that his known sexual orientation would be used by critics as an excuse to compromise the 71-page pamphlet when it was published. It analyzed the Cold War and the American response to it, and recommended non-violent solutions.”

Is this one of the reasons why this phrase is so famous in the U.S.?

He was raised by a Quaker grandmother and he was born in (William) Pennsylvania. Quakers are an amazing part of U.S. history!

As an aside: You will find following note in the linked document above:

“In September, 2010, the Board of Directors of the American Friends Service Committee approved a minute restoring the name of Bayard Rustin as one of the principal authors of Speak Truth to Power (see historical note at the end). AFSC regrets the failure to acknowledge Bayard Rustin's co-authorship of this pamphlet in 1955. Our records now include his name in the list of authors.”

Advised Martin Luther King On Non-Violence

“Rustin took leave from the War Resisters League in 1956 to advise Martin Luther King Jr. on Gandhian tactics. King was organizing the public transportation boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, known as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. According to Rustin, "I think it's fair to say that Dr. King's view of non-violent tactics was almost non-existent when the boycott began. In other words, Dr. King was permitting himself and his children and his home to be protected by guns." Rustin convinced King to abandon the armed protection, including a personal handgun.” (source).

If Mr. Rustin had this kind of influence, then this is very laudable!

Muslim World And Religious Fanaticism

One would wish there was a Bayard Rustin (or Mahatma Gandhi) among Muslims. Would he be have been able to teach non-violence to someone like Osama Bin Laden?