Education

Cornell Rejects Student For Journalism Trip, Allegedly Because She’s Indian

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Rob Shimshock Education Reporter
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A Cornell University graduate said Monday she believes her school rejected her from a journalism trip because of her Indian heritage.

Cornell graduate Neetu Chandak received an email from an unnamed professor suggesting the school rejected her application to attend the New York City trip to meet an “equitable demographic balance,” reported The College Fix.

“Every submission, including yours, was very strong,” the professor stated in an August 26, 2016 email to Chandak. “It ultimately came down — and I suppose this might be a good lesson in job placement — to finding an equitable demographic balance. By demographic I mean gender, need, etc.”

“Reading this response sent a shockwave of indignance through me,” Chandak wrote in The Fix. “There’s nothing that can quite prepare you for learning that you’ve been judged not by the qualifications of your resume, but the color of your skin. I believed the professor assumed I was privileged and I would not need any help with my career because my minority group, Indian American, is often successful in America.”

Students punished by affirmative action initiatives at college switch to easier majors or drop out of the school, a Heritage Foundation study found. Furthermore, affirmative action has led to deadly riots in India, according to the Hoover Institution.

Cornell made headlines earlier in May when a student delivered her thesis in lingerie. The Ivy League school’s Zeta Beta Tau fraternity came under scrutiny in February for hosting a “pig roast” game in which its new members competed to have sex with the most women, with the win, in a tie, going to the member who had sex with the heaviest woman. (RELATED: Cornell Frat Invents Sex Game Called ‘Pig Roast.’ They’re Obviously In Trouble Now)

Cornell spokesman John Carberry said he did not have any information on the incident with which he could provide The Daily Caller News Foundation.

TheDCNF reached out to Chandak for additional comment, but received none in time for press.

Editor’s note: Neetu Chandak is an incoming fellow at The Daily Caller News Foundation.

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