In an age dominated by situationships, Cornell has taken the bold step of making its love affair with the Trump administration official. On Friday, Nov. 7, Cornell announced an agreement with the Trump administration to restore Cornell’s federal research funding. And just like marriage, Cornell’s relationship with Trump is all the more meaningful because it is now contractual. Trump managed to extract $60 million from the University, a payout some might dismiss as unfortunate but ultimately irrelevant because the deal does not dramatically alter Cornell’s culture.
In the mere 15-minute “town hall” following the deal, President Michael Kotlikoff echoed that sentiment. “Nothing in this agreement affects our academic curriculum, free speech on campus,” he said. “Those were the issues we were most intent on resolving.” However, Kotlikoff, you gave up on free speech and academic integrity long before this deal. Your administration coerced a pro-Palestinian professor into retirement, attempted to slyly change the Student Code of Conduct to sideline our institution’s shared governance branches and fostered an unsafe environment for non-citizen students. This agreement is no “compromise.” It is nothing more than Cornell committing to its lover. Trump’s love language is words of affirmation, and Kotlikoff clearly learned how to keep him satisfied.
Of all of the Ivies that have settled, Columbia walked away with the worst deal. One of its most damning concessions is its decision to change its protest rules and provide the federal government with information on internal disciplinary actions involving student visa holders when requested. Unlike Columbia, it seems that Cornell has put up an ostensible boundary in our relationship with Trump. Our agreement with the Trump administration makes no agreement to provide the federal government with extra data on our international students. However, should we be so confident in our university?
In May, international graduate student Amandla Thomas-Johnson received notification that his immigration status had been terminated by the federal government, presumably for his alleged participation in the Palestine liberation protests. The following day, he received a notification from Google that his email had been subpoenaed by the Department of Homeland Security. However, Google’s policies state that, for accounts managed by organizations — like our Cornell email accounts — only the organization's administrators are notified of subpoena requests. Yet, when pressed if Cornell had received a request from DHS to subpoena Thomas-Johnson’s account, Cornell declined to respond to both Thomas-Johnson and The Sun.
If Cornell did not provide the federal government access to students’ emails, then why not deny the accusation? When you pair that vulnerability with Cornell’s expanding surveillance apparatus, the comfort evaporates quickly.
Updates to Policy 8.1 quietly mandated that “all cameras (including academic and research) must be integrated into the university’s centralized security video surveillance system.” In an environment where Cornell refuses to confirm or deny whether the Department of Homeland Security has subpoenaed students' email accounts over protest, how are students supposed to trust Cornell not to hand over surveillance footage to Trump? You may think this threat of surveillance does not apply to you — that, as someone who has committed no crime, you are insulated from state scrutiny. But recall that the Trump administration has already detained international students for nothing more than writing op-eds calling for divestment and opposing Israel’s genocide. This administration has shown no regard for legal limits, only for the political value of intimidation.
So when Cornell refuses to clarify whether it cooperates with federal investigations into student activism, the burden shifts entirely to the University — not students — to demonstrate that the international community is protected rather than merely permitted to exist. So far, there is little evidence of that protection.
And the Cheyfitz case makes clear that this atmosphere of fear is not limited to non-citizens. In fact, it exposes just how far Cornell is willing to go to avoid popping up on Trump’s radar. Cornell’s administration alleges that pro-Palestinian Professor Eric Cheyfitz told Israeli graduate student Oren Renard to drop his course because the student was Israeli. However, the Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom unanimously found that Cheyfitz had not violated University policy.
Furthermore, the central administration's witch hunt was based upon an unofficial transcript that details a conversation Renard secretly recorded between him and Cheyfitz. However, the raw audio seemingly was never provided during the investigation. Renard previously worked for Unit 8200, an elite cybersecurity unit in the Israeli Occupational Forces, raising concerns that he could easily manipulate the transcript and audio.
Additionally, the majority of the other students in the class with Renard believed he “had come [to class] to disrupt.” They were worried they “were being recorded” by Rennard and fearful it would later be used to dox them. Rennard's actions even led a Palestinian student to drop the course.
Instead of retreating, Cornell’s central administration unilaterally escalated the situation under the pretext of “following federally required law.” By ignoring the ruling of the academic freedom committee and pressing forward with possibly fabricated evidence, the administration signaled that they will go to great lengths to preemptively appease the federal government. The decision to punish Cheyfitz was not merely about legality. Instead, the decision was political. Prior to this case, Kotlikoff had made his discontent with Cheyfitz’s pro-Palestinian stance known. Kotlikoff had called Cheyfitz’s Gaza course description “radical, factually inaccurate, and biased” in an email to a professor.
In its pursuit of a Jewish professor teaching a course on Gaza, Cornell mirrored the tactic that Trump used to extort Cornell: treat criticism of Israel as discrimination and use the language of civil rights to punish views the institution finds inconvenient. If this is what happens to a tenured professor cleared by his peers, the message to the rest of campus is unmistakable: The content of your scholarship is undeniably influenced by the federal government.
The fate of our “academic curriculum” and “free speech” does not need to be written in a contract. Their fate is decided by the actions of our University. And so far, those actions paint a worrying picture.
Yihun Stith '26 is an Opinion Columnist and a Computer Science and Government student in the College of Arts & Sciences. His fortnightly column, Stand Up, Fight Back, explores the political structures and power dynamics that shape life at Cornell. Through analysis, critique, and calls to action, the column challenges Cornellians to engage with the world beyond the campus bubble and to fight for a more just and accountable university. He can be reached at ystith@cornellsun.com.
