In a unanimous vote, the Student Assembly passed Resolution 45, “Assembly Response to the Funding Cut,” on Thursday, requesting that the University keep the Assembly informed regarding University responses to the recent $1 billion funding cut by the federal government.
“We’re asking that when [the University] gets new information, they tell us. That’s what this resolution is, in essence,” said Adam Vinson ’25, Student Assembly executive vice president and a sponsor of Resolution 45.
The resolution comes amid reports that $1 billion in Cornell’s federal funding, primarily for contracts with the departments of agriculture, defense, education and health and human services has been frozen, according to members of the Trump Administration. In a statement released shortly after the report, the University said that they had “not received information that would confirm this figure,” but revealed that Cornell received 75 stop work orders for research into topics including jet engines, robotics and cancer.
The resolution also drafted a letter to be sent to New York state legislators requesting they do “everything in [their] power to protect the university from these cuts.”
According to Vinson, the Assembly aims to send this letter out by the end of the week to the New York State Congressional Delegation — emphasizing Rep. Josh Riley (D-N.Y.), Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Sen. Lea Webb (D-N.Y.) and Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125th District).
The Assembly also hopes to have a seat at the table as the University decides how to respond to the funding cuts.
The resolution calls for the University’s administration to have “elected representatives from the Student Assembly in conversation with Cornell leadership” and requests that Cornell inform the Assembly of details of the funding cuts and affected grants in a timely manner.
This amendment was proposed by Sara Almosawi ’25, the Student Assembly’s first generation student representative.
“Essentially the idea would be that when the [administration] decides to give in to a Trump administration demand, they at least talk with us first because we’re going to have critiques,” Vinson said.
Cornell is only the most recent university to receive funding cuts by the Trump administration in a slew of cuts targeting upper-level institutions including Brown, Columbia, Princeton, UPenn and Northwestern.
“This is a federal government that is run by people who will never stop making these demands because they don’t actually care about them — they just want to destroy higher education. That is the end goal, in my opinion, and if we continue to give into them, the demands are just going to get worse and worse,” Vinson said.
Resolution 45 has been submitted to President Michael Kotlikoff, who has 30 days to respond.
Kate Turk is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is an assistant news editor for the 143rd Editorial Board. She can be reached at kturk@cornellsun.com.
