I read with interest and dismay the news that Weill Cornell Medicine removed from its website a 2022 statement supporting gender-affirming care for transgender youth. On Jan. 28, the Trump administration issued an executive order purporting to forbid federal funding to institutions that provide such care. In statements to The Sun, Weill Cornell and the University explained that they made the removal while evaluating the executive order, but said almost nothing else.
In brief, this is a cowardly failure by Cornell to defend its core values at precisely the moment when it matters the most to stand up for them. Whimpering in fear and obeying in advance will not stop the Trump administration’s all-out attacks on trans people and universities.
Most fundamentally, the executive order is blatantly illegal. The president does not have constitutional or statutory authority to make such a massive change to federal spending on his own. Threatening to cut off federal funding to coerce compliance with unrelated rules is an unconstitutional condition. The intrusion on the physician-patient relationship violates the fundamental rights of patients to bodily autonomy; the order discriminates on the basis of sex and gender and is motivated by unconstitutional animus towards trans people. And even if the Trump administration could cut funding for providing this medical care, it would violate the First Amendment to cut funding for speaking about it. Many of these legal theories are already included in twolawsuits against the administration to block the executive order, and two federalcourts have already enjoined the enforcement of other anti-trans executive orders.
The Cornell administration seems to want to avoid putting the University at risk. But while it is one thing to be cautious in the face of legal uncertainty, it is quite another to be quiet out of fear. If Weill Cornell was committed on Jan. 27 to appropriate medical care for transgender youth, it should still be committed enough to say so — and it should also be committed to defending that commitment by filing its own lawsuit, if necessary. If the University believed on Jan. 27 that its pediatric faculty had the academic freedom to speak about their professional commitments, it should not now censor them. If the University believed on Jan. 27 that “any person … any study” includes trans people, it should still be willing to say so publicly, without mealy-mouthed obfuscations like “our programs and community members.”
Here is a revised draft of a statement, one that better reflects the values Cornell claims to follow:
A recent executive order purports to prevent Weill Cornell Medicine from providing transgender youth with gender-affirming care. We vehemently object to any attempt to prevent our patients from receiving medically appropriate care. We are studying the order carefully, along with state and federal laws and regulations and the New York Attorney General’s recent guidance. If necessary, we will protect our patients’ rights and our ability to continue to deliver the care they deserve by taking legal action to challenge the order. Cornell remains committed to the safety and inclusion of transgender members of our community and will continue to do everything it is legally able to do to ensure that they are treated equally, fairly and respectfully in all University programs.
If Cornell cannot now put out a statement like this one, it shows that the now-deleted 2022 statement and others like it were aspirational lies. And if the administration cannot now defend core University values, Cornell will soon cease to be a university with values worth defending.
James Grimmelmann is the Tessler Family Professor of Digital and Information Law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School.
