Citing concerns over incomplete information, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly voted on Tuesday to table and amend a resolution condemning the dismissal of Julia Feliz from the Cornell Alliance for Science’s Global Leadership Fellowship.
The original resolution, sponsored by Arielle Johnson grad, voting member, condemned the dismissal of Feliz, stating that “many details of the case are still unknown; however, given the published information, we feel that the Alliance for Science’s administrative team mishandled the situation.”
The resolution further states, “as graduate and professional students who often have little power in advising relationships, we empathize with precarity of Feliz’s situation. It often seems difficult to speak up about concerns in our own programs when our supervisors control the futures of our careers.”
Feliz previously attended the Alliance for Science fellowship before they were ejected from the program, The Sun previously reported. While Feliz called the move racist, the University maintained that Feliz was disrupting the program.
That resolution, proposed to a divided room, was immediately rejected by the assembly. Despite Feliz’s allegation of being dismissed on the basis of their outspokenness over alleged issues of racism and sexism in the program, voting member A. P. D. G. Everett grad moved to amend the resolution from “condemning” to “expressing concern regarding.”
Everett argued that it would not be appropriate to express more than concern at the situation, due to there being “incomplete information” on the circumstances of Feliz’s removal.
Despite extending the debate by 15 minutes, the assembly members still could not find a path to finalizing the resolution by the end of the meeting. Out of 17 voting members, only one voted to finish the resolution by the end of the night.
However, even though the resolution was tabled for another time, members did agree to adopt the amendment proposed by Everett, albeit with less than half the members concurring. The resolution will now be sent to a committee which will redraft the resolution in accordance with Tuesday’s vote.
The final vote count on amending the resolution was seven in favor, two against and eight abstaining.