Editor’s Note: Cornell has no official role in encouraging the Town Hall. Any participation in it by individuals is independent of university status.
May 16
White House Chronicle, Commentary: How Technology Built the British Empire, Llewellyn King, May 16, 2025. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKLbfGnKvlRXFSdCzNtHVFcsxgjKHfvzcsCRNMprSzzGZXhcnTtdQJzjgfQGlVNjVbgV As someone who grew up in the last days of the British Empire, I am often asked how it was that so few people controlled so much of the world for so long?
The simple answer is technology underpinned the British Empire, from its tentative beginnings in the 17th century to its global dominance in the 18th and 19th centuries and most of the first half of the 20th century.
America filled the gap left by Britain as the dominant force in the world, admired, copied and envied. But underpinning that state of esteem and financial ease was tech leadership, medical leadership, and cultural leadership through film and television. America became the techno supremo. Now government research funding is being butchered across the board from advanced energy to, most shameful of all, the philistine slashing of the National Institutes of Health’s research budgets. Changing times doomed the British Empire, America’s future is at stake and it will be determined by technology and medicine. If we underfund research, the future is known.
May 14
New York Times, Kennedy Clashes With Top Democrat Who Accused Him of ‘Destroying’ Health Agencies, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, May 14, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/us/politics/rfk-jr-hhs-overhaul-hearing.html
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose drastic overhaul of the federal health apparatus has left scientists and patients reeling, clashed on Wednesday with a senior House Democrat, who accused him of “destroying the crown jewels of our health system” and of violating the law by cutting funding appropriated by Congress for lifesaving medical research.
“We are not withholding money for lifesaving research,” Mr. Kennedy insisted. After a fiery back and forth, Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, looked disgusted. “Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.”
He faced similar accusations from Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the former Democratic leader.
The sharp exchanges on Wednesday morning came during Mr. Kennedy’s testimony before the appropriations panel, his first appearance on Capitol Hill since becoming health secretary. He will also appear on Wednesday afternoon before the Senate health committee, whose Republican chairman will call on him to explain to Americans how his reforms “will make their lives easier, not harder.”
The back-to-back appearances were scheduled so that Mr. Kennedy could promote President Trump’s budget for the Department of Health and Human Services for the next fiscal year.
But he is also facing sharp questions about the huge reductions he has already imposed on research grants and jobs, which key Democrats have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump’s “war on science.”
The Bulwark, Commentary: Autocrats, Kleptocrats, Plutocrats… Oh My! William Kristol, May 14, 2025. https://www.thebulwark.com What a spectacle! There they were yesterday, assembled in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, autocrats and plutocrats and kleptocrats, gathered to enjoy each other’s company under the benevolent patronage of their host, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Saudi Arabia was an appropriate destination for Donald Trump’s first foreign trip in his second term as president. He chose to visit not a democracy but a despotism; not a free nation but one of the world’s most unfree; not a land of tolerance but of repression. And Trump made it clear yesterday that he did not consider these features unfortunate or undesirable aspects of life under the House of Saud. There was not a hint of criticism or even of hesitation in the fulsome praise Trump heaped upon his hosts. The American president admires the Saudi achievements in autocracy, plutocracy, and kleptocracy.
Lincoln Square, Commentary, Here is a specific thing you can do to fight Trump’s politicization of public services, Don Moynihan, May 14, 2025. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKLbfGmsvXJxjhRVHsFZzJfVJNQgSGxRdtdDfhrkNBNnWKGzkNmrqCHrtMzSmlMHZbPQ Feeling overwhelmed? That’s OK. Here’s your guide to fighting back against Trump’s war on federal workers and basic competence.
Trump’s maximalist strategy of firing off one executive action after another seeks to overwhelm us. Finding some tangible way to respond sometimes feels impossible. So, here is something that you can do: Take the time you would have spent complaining about politics online, and use it to write a comment opposing the proposed Office of Personnel Management rule to politicize public services. You can do it in 5 minutes. Deadline is May 23rd!
Why should you do this? The proposed rule seeks to reinstate Schedule F, Trump’s never implemented plan to institutionalize political control and loyalty tests for the career bureaucracy by turning 50,000 or more career civil servants into political appointees. Federal comments really do matter. By law, they must be read by the administration, and substantive comments require a response. Failure to do so can see the rule tossed out by courts.
It’s easy: Enter a comment here. No log in. Just click on the “submit a public comment” button. You can enter text, or upload a document. The volume of opposing comments matters, so writing something short and sweet is great. You don’t need to read the rule in depth or be an expert. The proposed rule is bad and protecting nonpartisan civil servants is good. See more details below or take a look at the comments people have already posted.
More detailed and informed comments are even better. One thing that is different from the first time Schedule F was introduced is that we now have a track record showing how Trump’s much more politicized mismanagement of the federal government is having negative effects, and handing him more power would be a disaster. I am especially appealing to people with deep knowledge of policies and management to explain how Schedule F would hurt their domain of expertise. Please, please, please weigh in to provide actual information about how providing protections for career officials will protect against political abuses. If a bunch of people with real and credible experience comment, it becomes harder for the administration and judges to ignore us. I will leave comments to this piece open, so people can share their comments if they wish.
May 13
New York Times, Chasing Tax Cuts, Trump and Republicans Want to Make States Pay, Tony Romm, May 13, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/us/politics/trump-republicans-tax-cuts-spending-states.html G.O.P. leaders are exploring cuts to federal aid, leaving some states fearful that their budgets cannot absorb billions of dollars in new costs.
Across the country, state leaders are beginning to express alarm about the budgetary fallout from President Trump’s economic agenda, warning that they will not be able to pick up the bill if the federal government reduces its funding for major public services. To governors and other officials, many of whom are Democrats, the fear is that Washington could sharply curtail federal programs that help states improve their infrastructure, respond to natural disasters, expand education and provide a suite of health, housing and nutrition benefits to the poor.
Meidas Touch Network, Trump Cuts Another $450M in Funding From Harvard, Troy Matthews, May 13, 2025. https://meidasnews.com/news/trump-cuts-another-450m-in-funding-from-harvard Yes, why would the U.S. want more doctors? The Trump administration announced it was pulling an additional $450 million in funding from Harvard University this week, after freezing $2.2 billion in grant funding last week. The White House called the cuts punitive as a result of a failure of Harvard to address race discrimination and antisemitism on its campus.
The cuts represent funding from eight different government agencies, including from the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services, which have typically given Harvard and other Ivy League schools funding for advanced research in medical sciences.
“There is a dark problem on Harvard’s campus, and by prioritizing appeasement over accountability, institutional leaders have forfeited the school’s claim to taxpayer support,” the Trump Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism said in a statement.
“Harvard, and its leadership group who are tainted by the egregious infractions under its watch, faces a steep, uphill battle to reclaim its legacy as a lawful institution and center of academic excellence.” Harvard, “will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” university President Alan Garber said recently. “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.”
May 11
Robert Reich via Substack, Commentary: Moral clarity in a time of monsters, Robert Reich, right, May 11, 2025. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/sunday-thought-68f? publication_id=365422&post_id=163068198&isFreemail=true&r=atkf6&triedRedirect=true Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
We are living in a time when monsters roam the globe: Trump, Putin, Netanyahu, Xi, Modi, Erdoğan, and others.
They are destroying countless lives, fueling hate, spreading fear.
What is our moral obligation as human beings in the face of this? How do we maintain integrity in a time of monsters?
Some people I know are in denial. They’ve stopped listening to the news. They’d rather not know what the monsters are doing.
I understand. It’s all too painful — the abductions and deportations in the United States, horrific deaths in Ukraine and Gaza, abuses of human rights in China’s Xinjiang region and in Turkey, violence in Kashmir.
Why learn of it? they ask. Nothing can be done anyway, they say.
Others are immobilized with grief. They cannot abide the inhumanity and suffering, so they’ve collapsed into despair.
Nothing will be done, they say.
Some others I know are resigned to what’s happening and believe their only real choice is to keep quiet. They don’t speak out against the monsters for fear of reprisal.
It’s the only practical choice, they say.
These are all completely understandable responses. If you are in denial, despair, or submissive silence, you should not feel guilty. You are only human.
But it’s also important to know that these attitudes help the monsters thrive and grow.
When most of us believe that nothing can be done, or assume nothing will be done, or think that silence is the only practical choice, we fuel more monstrosity.
We are in a national emergency, as is much of the rest of the world. If you are in denial or despair or in fearful silence, you are hardly alone.
But if enough of us stand up as Emily did, the monsters cannot win. We will prevail. We will end up with a democracy stronger than it was before the time of monsters.
Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy emeritus at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, including as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century.
New York Times, How One Ivy League University Has Avoided Trump’s Retribution So Far, Vimal Patel, May 11, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/us/politics/dartmouth-college-trump.html Some 600 college leaders recently signed a letter opposing the Trump administration’s interference in higher education. The only Ivy League president who did not sign the letter was Sian Beilock, the president of Dartmouth College.
Dartmouth College is not on the Trump administration’s target lists and its funding remains intact, unlike the rest of its peers. Its president may be why.
Instead, she wrote her own letter to her campus, saying that higher education institutions should strive to do better, “to further our standing as a trusted beacon for knowledge and truth.”
“Reflection does not mean capitulation,” she added.
It is the kind of message, her critics and supporters say, that has so far helped to keep Dartmouth out of the Trump administration’s cross hairs.
Six of the eight Ivies are facing major funding threats, to the tune of billions of dollars, as the federal government attempts to punish them over concerns about antisemitism and other issues. Harvard University alone could lose over $2 billion. And every Ivy but Dartmouth is being investigated over allegations that they have allowed antisemitism on campus.
The onslaught is unlike anything universities have experienced, academic leaders say. In addition to stripping schools of research money, the administration has threatened to increase taxes on university endowments, reshape college accreditation and even revoke tax exemptions from schools.
Image
Sian Beilock stands near a window in an office, wearing an olive-colored blazer with a “D” pin fixed to the lapel.
Dartmouth College’s president, Sian Beilock, is the youngest Ivy League president and has been on the job less than two years. Credit…Caleb Kenna for The New York Times
While Dartmouth hasn’t been targeted specifically, it would not emerge unscathed if the Republican administration gets its way. Higher endowment taxes could bring a significant financial blow, for example. And the administration’s visa crackdown has entangled some current and former Dartmouth students.
Dr. Beilock’s supporters see her as a champion of free expression and dialogue among people with different political viewpoints. They say she has been consistent, supporting these ideas long before the Trump administration or even the Hamas attack on Israel complicated campus politics.
May 8, 2025
Cornell University, Cornell President’s Message To Cornellians, Michael I. Kotlikoff, Ph.D., President, shown at right, May 8, 2025. Today, across all of our campuses, Cornell scientists are developing new technologies, finding better ways to treat and cure diseases, and continually expanding our understanding of life, on earth and beyond. https://view.m.cornell.edu/?af7b4f43e7f82c4e743cadf1ac42dc8279db5b03ffa96cc5ac043655ac63db167703d36 Editor’s Note: Cornell has no official role in encouraging the Town Hall. Any participation in it by individuals is independent of university status.
The real-world impact of this work is incalculable. It strengthens our national security, protects the safety and stability of our food supply, and ensures the progress and resilience of our nation.
For decades, federal agencies have relied on Cornell and other research universities to perform the highly specialized research and development work that improves and enhances our lives. This partnership has been critical to advancing and maintaining America’s economic, political, and military strength in the postwar era. Now, recent federal actions and funding freezes have imperiled that partnership—and the work on which so much of our national wellbeing and strength depend.
The impact of this funding freeze is immediate and devastating. Grants that support research to prevent midair airplane collisions, find new treatments for drug-resistant prostate cancer, develop new materials for jet fighter wings, and build a miniature heart-assist pump for infants with life-threatening congenital heart disease have all been halted.
To date, federal agencies have stopped work on or terminated more than 100 research projects at Cornell, abruptly ending ongoing research grants with no official notice of their future status. Media reports have suggested that more than $1 billion in federal funding to Cornell will be suspended.
While the university is doing what it can to protect the infrastructure of our research enterprise, finding stopgap ways to pay research faculty and staff and cover the expenses of running their labs, the financial loss is not sustainable. Every campus, every college, and every school at Cornell has been impacted.
- How Cornell is responding
- Three ways you can help
May 5
The Bulwark, Opinion: Our Megalomaniacal President, William Kristol, May 5, 2025. Trump has always been a narcissist. But it’s gotten much worse. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/WhctKLbfFlvCWQBDHMJCZlZSQZgjmkSmFkRFMHDzlqgpzrGMZmqQwpTsZcPggxWlDzjgNSg
Why is Donald Trump’s second term so much more dangerous than his first? Trump has always been a narcissist. But what do you call it when success and power go to a narcissist’s head? Megalomania?
As Trump said in his recent interview with the Atlantic: “The first time, I had two things to do—run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys . . . And the second time, I run the country and the world.”
Now, most presidents wouldn’t say in the first place that they “run the country.” They might recognize that other branches of government play a role, and that other national institutions matter. They might grasp the fact that this is a free country, not one the president “runs.”
So the narcissism is jarring. But Trump’s self-described progression from “I run the country” to “I run the country and the world” seems to represent a progression from narcissism to megalomania. Running the world sounds . . . God-like.
Tariffs are one of the miraculous ways that Trump believes will enable him to run the world. As he explained to Time magazine:
You have to understand . . . I’ve made all the deals. . . . The deal is a deal that I choose. View it differently: We are a department store, and we set the price. I meet with the companies, and then I set a fair price, what I consider to be a fair price, and they can pay it, or they don’t have to pay it. They don’t have to do business with the United States, but I set a tariff on countries. . . . So I will set a price.
What an image: The United States as Trump’s department store. It’s a store where he sets the prices, where neither Congress nor companies nor markets nor other countries have any say. It’s all him.
Democracy Docket, Commentary: My time on 60 Minutes and why I refuse to stay silent, Marc Elias, May 5, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q11iccirwgc
I have been fighting Donald Trump nonstop for a decade. I officially became general counsel to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign on April 12, 2015. A month later, on June 16, Trump announced his campaign.
People often forget that in 2016, Trump and his campaign were fixated on undermining free and fair elections. I was equally determined to protect them. That year, I led litigation efforts in several battleground states aimed at defending voting rights. Our efforts were in vain. While we won some of the lawsuits, we lost the election.
Even after he won the 2016 election, Trump’s disdain for democracy remained central to his identity. Donald Trump became the 45th President as an avowed election critic, vote suppressor and someone who bore a personal grudge against me.
The basic outlines of his grievances against me are well known. He hates me for working for Hillary Clinton. He despises me for humiliating him in court after the 2020 election. He is livid that I call out his lies, refuse to back down and continue to defeat him and the GOP in court.
I have endured his scurrilous attacks for years. He has sued me for racketeering — and lost. He has unleashed his right-wing army of online trolls. Since his reelection, he has threatened me, defamed me and singled me out by name in two executive orders.
The latest development in this saga took place late on Friday, when a federal judge permanently blocked Trump’s executive order seeking to punish my former law firm for my work while I was a partner there. As the court dryly explained:
“Perkins Coie’s representation of President Trump’s political opponent in the 2016 presidential campaign and representation of other clients in connection with election litigation has drawn President Trump’s attention and ire, as reflected in his public statements and his filing of a lawsuit against the Firm.”
The judge offered several examples of those statements. For instance, the court noted that in March 2024, Trump posted an article on his social media platform entitled “Marc Elias Is Scared…And He Should Be.”
More ominously, the court noted that Trump twice, in the fall of 2024, posted “his intent, if elected, to investigate and prosecute ‘Lawyers’ and others he perceived to be helping political opponents and ‘involved’ in what he perceived to be ‘unscrupulous behavior.’”
Which brings me to my appearance Sunday night on 60 Minutes.
Several weeks ago, a producer from the broadcast reached out to say they were working on a story about Trump’s targeting of law firms. I had already written about the topic, expressing my outrage at Trump’s actions and my deep disappointment with the legal industry’s failure to unite behind the targeted firms.
After I shared my views, the producer asked if I’d be willing to discuss the topic on camera. I was unsure. I had previously appeared in a 60 Minutes episode in 2020 about GOP plans to attack voting rights, so I knew the drill — lots of time talking, for a clip or two in the final cut.
However, I quickly learned that few other lawyers — particularly partners at large law firms — were willing to speak on television. The same fear that had prevented Big Law firms from standing up to Trump was now making their partners unwilling to speak out publicly. Even the targeted firms remained quiet.
In 2020, I created Democracy Docket to expose Trump’s lies about elections and democracy in court. Over the years, it had grown into a full-fledged media company. In 2024, I began writing more frequently and doing more on its YouTube channel. It, too, faced a crossroads.
If Kamala Harris had won, I might have scaled back. I could have continued practicing law and writing, without maintaining the same grueling schedule I’d kept for three decades. I had even planned to take time off to write a book.
But with Trump back in office, I decided all of that would have to wait. I promised myself that I would continue to fight Trump and his authoritarian vision for this country with everything I have.
So, I agreed to talk to 60 Minutes, and I promised myself I would not pull punches.
From the opening words of Judge Beryl Howell’s opinion — “No American President has ever before issued executive orders like the one at issue in this lawsuit” — to the 60 Minutes closing credits, this has been an emotional weekend for me personally.
I have no doubt that Trump’s hateful words are not behind me. I am certain he will escalate his campaign of political retribution. But, for my part, I will not stop fighting. I will never back down. And I will always speak out.
May 4
CBS 60 Minutes, How law firms targeted by Trump are responding to White House pressure, Anchor Scott Pelley, May 4, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1QSDSnX8Rw
In recent weeks, President Trump has signed orders targeting several law firms. Some lawyers warn that the president’s assault on the legal profession threatens the rule of law itself.
New York Times, Trump Says ‘I Don’t Know’ When Asked About Due Process and Upholding Constitution, Jonathan Swan, May 4, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/trump-meet-the-press-interview-due-process.html President Trump repeatedly said he didn’t know when asked in a TV interview whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, as guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
President Trump said in an interview that aired on Sunday that he did not know whether every person on American soil was entitled to due process, despite constitutional guarantees, and complained that adhering to that principle would result in an unmanageable slowdown of his mass deportation program.
The revealing exchange, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” was prompted by the interviewer Kristen Welker asking Mr. Trump if he agreed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that citizens and noncitizens in the United States were entitled to due process.
New York Times, Trump Battles Academia, but Especially the Ivy League, Elisabeth Bumiller, May 4, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/trump-ivy-league.html
Beyond the politics is a brew of resentment and reverence that the president, an Ivy League graduate himself, has long harbored for a club that has never accepted him.
There it was for all to see, President Trump’s tangled relationship with the Ivy League, delivered in a burst at his rally in Michigan on Tuesday night.
“He’s the top,” the president said of Dr. Mehmet Oz, the TV celebrity doctor he chose to oversee Medicare and Medicaid. “I mean, he went to Harvard.” But then: “I shouldn’t even mention that anymore because that used to be a good thing. Today it doesn’t mean much.”
There was this about Gen. Mark A. Milley, the president’s first-term choice as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “You know, he went to Princeton,” Mr. Trump said in 2019. “And he went to Columbia.” But then: “I’m not sure, was that a good thing or a bad? Did I like it or not?” The president never answered, although he called General Milley, whom he has since reviled, a “smart cookie.”
And on Justice Brett Kavanaugh: “He was, I believe, No. 1 at Yale,” Mr. Trump said in 2018 of his Supreme Court nominee. “Is that a correct statement?” It was not, since Yale does not calculate class rank.
What is correct is that the president’s war on academia has focused intensely on the Ivy League, the richly endowed collection of eight schools, most founded in the colonial era, that cost $90,000 or more a year, send a disproportionate number of graduates into America’s leadership class and accounted for less than 1 percent of the nation’s undergraduate enrollment in the fall of 2022.
Mr. Trump’s attacks on this elite group — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania — have endeared him to his political base. He is withholding, or threatening to withhold, billions of dollars in federal funding from six of the eight schools because, he says, they are citadels of antisemitism and liberal indoctrination. Officials in higher education acknowledge failures, but call the president’s crackdown a perilous threat to academic freedom.
The Trump administration has targeted many other colleges and universities for potential antisemitism, some 60 in all. And yet the eight Ivies are cultural touchstones for Mr. Trump. Beyond the politics is a complex brew of resentment and reverence that the president, an Ivy League graduate himself, has long harbored for a club that has never really accepted him.
“They don’t return the love to him,” said Alan Marcus, a business and political consultant who oversaw Mr. Trump’s public relations from 1994 to 2000. After the president’s companies went through multiple bankruptcies in the 1990s, Mr. Marcus said that as part of an attempted comeback for his client he tried to get Mr. Trump to deliver a college commencement address or receive an honorary degree.
“I called a few people I knew on boards,” Mr. Marcus said. “But I got essentially laughed at.”
Timothy L. O’Brien, a biographer of Mr. Trump, said the president’s ire about the upper echelon of academia was not surprising. “He has a long track record of criticizing elites that he desperately wants to be accepted by,” Mr. O’Brien said. As far as the Ivy League, he said, “he could barely wait to get in himself.”
May 1
Cornell Daily Sun, Commentary: U.S. Universities in Crisis: The Implicit and Explicit Threat of Nationalization, Daniel R. Schwarz, May 1, 2025. https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2025/05/ud3i83dv5hhw Using the threat of withholding research funds and taxing endowments, Trump and his acolytes are trying to nationalize universities. Under the guise of fighting antisemitism, they want to put universities under the auspices of various kinds of monitors, perhaps in some cases judges, who will control what universities do.
Disregarding democracy, autocrats are bullies who stifle dissent and debate to impose their worldview. The Trump administration lives by intimidation, whether it be directed at the press, the legal establishment, cultural resources or the media.
Defending the right to express fact-based opinions and different interpretations of the same facts, universities must resist intimidation by an authoritarian regime that seeks compliant silence in the face of outrageous demands. Universities’ leadership must not follow the example of some leaders of the U.S. media, medical, educational, legal and corporate worlds who have been cowed into silence and succumbed to threats.
Despite Columbia University agreeing to his conditions, it still has not had its $400 million released because Trump’s end game is to continue making new demands on universities until they capitulate to his conditions on admission as well as his stipulations for muzzling free speech, hiring conservatives, testing the politics of foreign students and dismantling programs that encourage diversity and inclusion.
The failure of the GOP majority in Congress to resist or challenge Trump enables him to rule by executive order, which means ruling by decree. As Frank Bruni and others have remarked, we have entered a world of unpredictable darkness.
A personal note: When I was a guest at Peking University four years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protest demonstrations, which ended with the army massacring 200 protestors, the university was run by the army. Professors were humiliated when they came to work, having to show their credentials every day. I was told my lecture would be heard by party factotums whose reports could jeopardize my hosts. That is what happens when universities fall under government control.
U.S. universities must be independent of government control. Those who understand the role of universities in a democracy applaud Harvard’s president, Alan M. Garber, who refused to capitulate: “Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.” Nor, I would argue, can the great public universities submit to government interference even though they are vulnerable to state interference.
Daniel R. Schwarz is Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell University where he has been a faculty member for 57 years.
April 29
ABC News, HHS firings, questioning safety of vaccines: How the Trump administration may be ‘attacking’ science, Mary Kekatos, April 29, 2025. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/hhs-firings-questioning-safety-vaccines-trump-administration-attacking/story?id=121125793 Officials have been questioning what is believed to be established science.
The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been filled with mass firings, cancellations of research grants, university funding cuts and questions over what should be studied.
Thousands of people have been let go at federal agencies and critical research has been put on hold. Additionally, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccines and antidepressant medications despite dozens of studies proving they are safe and effective.
Doctors and public health specialists critical of the administration tell ABC News they view these actions as an “attack” on science, damaging the reputation of respected agencies and by questioning what is believed to be established science.
MORE: RFK Jr. said HHS layoffs are needed as ‘Americans are getting sicker.’ Here’s what the data shows.
“It’s completely unprecedented,” Steve Cohen, senior vice dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies and a professor of public affairs at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, told ABC News. “It’s frankly a little unhinged. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The White House did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
An HHS official told ABC News that framing the actions of the admiration as an “attack” is “fundamentally dishonest.”
“Further reviewing pharmaceutical products with gold standard science and common sense is not an ‘”attack on science’ — it’s what the American people have asked for and deserve,” the official said. ” Let’s be clear: Secretary Kennedy is not anti-vaccine — he is pro-safety, pro-transparency, and pro-accountability.”
Thousands of layoffs
Earlier this month, HHS began to lay off 10,000 workers as part of a massive restructuring plan.
Sources previously told ABC News that affected offices included most of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health, key offices in the Center for Tobacco Products, most of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the entire assisted reproductive technology team at the CDC.
There have also been local impacts in communities due to federal layoffs. ABC News previously reported in March, the CDC was poised to send its lead ‘disease detectives’ to Milwaukee amid an ongoing lead crisis in schools, but the entire division was cut under sweeping HHS layoffs, leaving local health officials without help they were relying on.
Scientists have also been laid off at NASA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Cohen said these firings have put studies on hold and have greatly reduced the capacity of the federal government to review research.
“Scientists inside agencies, whether they’re environmental scientists or medical scientists or people focusing on vaccines or drugs, are being fired, and so some of the research capacity in Washington, in the federal government is being eliminated, and also their ability to judge proposals from universities,” he said.
“The only place I haven’t seen [firings] happen yet are the laboratories,” Cohen added.
Cuts that are currently proposed or have already been implemented include the elimination of the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV Policy, created by Brett Giroir, the former U.S. assistant secretary for health.
Giroir, who helped convince Trump in his first term to set a goal to end the HIV epidemic in the U.S., wrote in a post on social media last week that the president could ruin his legacy and mission with such cuts.
Canceling research grants, funding cuts to universities
Millions of dollars’ worth of grants have been terminated at the National Institutes of Health related to studies involving LGBTQ+ issues, gender identity and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) because they do not “effectuate” the “priorities” of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to copies of termination letters sent to grant recipients and viewed by ABC News.
Dr. Harold Varmus, a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and former director of the NIH, said these terminations are “detrimental” because they may be affecting people in the middle of clinical trials, or affecting the early stages of experimental work.
Research projects focusing on minority populations have major benefits, Varmus noted.
“The purpose of health research in this country is to address problems faced by everybody and to explore every facet of a population that may affect their health,” he said. “To single out certain categories of individuals who would not be appropriate to study seems ludicrous to me … one of the great strengths of America is that we are diverse.”
April 18
Cornell Review, Why the Endowment Won’t Solve Cornell’s Problems, Staff Report, April 18, 2025. https://www.thecornellreview.org/why-the-endowment-wont-solve-cornells-problems/ Cornell is facing many challenges, particularly the Trump Administration is suspending $1 billion in federal research grants due to alleged antisemitism and improper diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
For the year ending June 30, 2023, Cornell received $157 million in state and federal appropriations, $826.5 million in federal grants, and $70.7 million in state grants. This compares with $307 million in grants from the private sector. Yet, all of these are small parts of Cornell’s $5.9 billion in annual operating expenses.
In response, many people are asking whether Cornell can withstand this challenge by using its endowment to fill the gap. As of March 2025, the endowment was worth $10,332,429,674, which is the 14th largest in the country. However, most experts claim that a better measurement is the endowment per student, and Cornell ranks 71st by that measure.
April 8
New York Times, Trump Administration Freezes $1 Billion for Cornell and $790 Million for Northwestern, Officials Say, Michael C. Bender and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, April 8, 2025, Updated April 15, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/08/us/politics/cornell-northwestern-university-funds-trump.html?searchResultPosition=5 The funding pause amid civil rights investigations into both universities sharply escalates the Trump administration’s campaign against elite colleges.
The Trump administration has frozen more than $1 billion in funding for Cornell and $790 million for Northwestern amid civil rights investigations into both schools, two U.S. officials said.
The funding pause involves mostly grants from and contracts with the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education and Health and Human Services, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the unannounced decision.
The moves are the latest and largest in a rapidly escalating campaign against elite American universities that has resulted in billions in federal funds being suspended or put under review in just over a month. Other schools that have had funds threatened include Brown, Columbia, Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
Cornell and Northwestern are both facing investigations into allegations of antisemitism and into accusations of racial discrimination stemming from their efforts to promote diversity.
Cornell officials said in a statement that they had received more than 75 stop-work orders from the Defense Department on Tuesday, but that they had no information to confirm that more than $1 billion in funding had been suspended. The affected grants, they said, supported research that they described as “profoundly significant to American defense, cybersecurity and health.”
“We are actively seeking information from federal officials to learn more about the basis for these decisions,” said the joint statement from Michael Kotlikoff, the university president; Kavita Bala, the provost; and Robert Harrington, provost for medical affairs.
Jon Yates, a spokesman for Northwestern, said that the university had not been notified by the federal government that funding had been frozen.
Northwestern, a Big Ten university, is the first non-Ivy League school to have funding from the Trump administration targeted under investigations of alleged discrimination. The university issued a “progress report” last week that highlighted its efforts to protect Jewish students, including mandatory antisemitism training for all students, faculty and staff.
“Federal funds that Northwestern receives drive innovative and lifesaving research, like the recent development by Northwestern researchers of the world’s smallest pacemaker, and research fueling the fight against Alzheimer’s disease,” Mr. Yates said. “This type of research is now at jeopardy.”
March 21
Credit: Ryan Young/Cornell University
Cornell University / Cornell Chronicle, Michael Kotlikoff named Cornell’s 15th president, David Nutt, March 21, 2025. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/03/michael-kotlikoff-named-cornells-15th-president The Cornell Board of Trustees today voted to appoint Michael I. Kotlikoff, who has served as interim president since July 2024, Cornell’s 15th president, effective immediately.
“Over the last eight months as interim president – and his 25 years on Cornell’s faculty – Mike has demonstrated the leadership and vision that the university needs right now,” said Board of Trustees Chair Kraig Kayser, MBA ’84. “His institutional knowledge, expertise and passion for our shared mission will continue to help him lead Cornell through a period of great uncertainty and provide much-needed continuity at a critical time.”
As interim president, Kotlikoff has sought to foster connection and dialogue on campus and to highlight the unique attributes of Cornell – including its history and its ethos.
“I’ve spent 25 wonderful years at Cornell, and serving this university is an honor and a privilege,” Kotlikoff said. “I’m committed to finishing my career here, leading an institution I love through these challenging times. As higher education across the U.S. navigates difficult political, financial and societal headwinds, I hope to guide Cornell in ways that reflect our core principles as an institution committed to doing ‘the greatest good.’”
A professor of molecular physiology, Kotlikoff arrived at Cornell in 2000 to build a new department in biomedical sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). He also launched and led the university’s Mammalian Genomics Life Science Initiative. He was named dean of CVM in 2007, and he became university provost in 2015.
“Mike has been a dedicated advocate and champion for Cornell for decades,” said Anne Meinig Smalling ’87, chair of the Board of Trustees Executive Committee and the incoming board chair. “His values, knowledge and insights are deeply appreciated by all who know him. I and the other trustees look forward to working with Mike in the months and years ahead.”
Previously, Kotlikoff was professor and chair of the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his B.A. in 1973 and VMD in 1981, with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, in 1984.
A professor of molecular physiology, Kotlikoff arrived at Cornell in 2000 to build a new department in biomedical sciences at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM). He also launched and led the university’s Mammalian Genomics Life Science Initiative. He was named dean of CVM in 2007, and he became university provost in 2015.
“Mike has been a dedicated advocate and champion for Cornell for decades,” said Anne Meinig Smalling ’87, chair of the Board of Trustees Executive Committee and the incoming board chair. “His values, knowledge and insights are deeply appreciated by all who know him. I and the other trustees look forward to working with Mike in the months and years ahead.”
Previously, Kotlikoff was professor and chair of the Department of Animal Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his B.A. in 1973 and VMD in 1981, with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, in 1984.
By the time he was hired at Cornell in 2000, his research interests had expanded from studying ion channel proteins that control muscle excitability to using genetics to understand the fundamental processes that underlie and limit repair of the damaged mammalian heart. His arrival opened new opportunities for studying mouse genetics at the university. His lab’s breakthroughs included developing optogenetic signaling molecules that can be expressed in mice to explore cell function; ways to use cell therapy to treat cardiac arrythmias in injured hearts; and an understanding of the limits of precursor cells in heart repair. He has published 152 papers and his lab, which he closed in 2021, was continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health since he began his research career. He has served in numerous roles at the NIH, including chairing the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and serving on the NIH Council of Councils.
Kotlikoff also has the distinction of having been Cornell’s longest-serving provost and served as chief budget officer in addition to chief academic officer. As provost, he helped steward many large and complicated projects, such as the creation of the SC Johnson College of Business and the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy; the Radical Collaboration initiative; the North Campus Residential Expansion; and the university’s COVID-19 response.
His wife, Carolyn McDaniel, retired in 2024 as a professor of practice in CVM. They have two children: Phoebe, a lawyer and former submarine officer with the U.S. Navy, and Emmett ’16, who graduated from Cornell with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and currently works for Google.https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2025/03/michael-kotlikoff-named-cornells-15th-president
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