Levin defends absence from anti-Trump letter at Faculty Senate meeting

During a Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday, University president Jonathan Levin ’94 defended his decision not to sign a Tuesday statement from peer institutions condemning the Trump administration’s actions toward higher education.

Over 180 colleges and universities joined the letter, which opposed cuts to federal research funding and the “retribution, censorship, or deportation” of international students who contribute to “an exchange of ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints.” Among this number were peer institutions such as Harvard, MIT and Princeton.

“I don’t disagree with the sentiments in that letter,” Levin said during the meeting. “I just prefer not to sign open letters in general. I think it’s good practice at a university for people to formulate and express their own views.”

Levin cited a statement that he and Martin authored in support of Harvard after its president, Alan Garber M.D. ’83, rejected a lengthy list of demands from the Trump administration. On April 14, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants as retribution for Harvard’s failure to comply with its demands, which included ceasing recognition of pro-Palestine student groups and commissioning an “audit” of students and staff for viewpoint diversity. Harvard retaliated by suing the administration on Monday amid the administration’s review of a further $9 billion in federal contracts and grants.

Levin also referenced the University’s participation in a recent lawsuit contesting proposed cuts to all Department of Energy research grants.

“The provost and I made clear our views about the issue last week,” Levin said. “I believe in working together with a broad array of peer institutions to advance higher education. We are doing so in several ways, including a second lawsuit against cuts to federal funding that we filed last week.”

Following Levin’s statement, political science professor Anna Grzymala-Busse contended that “a multiplicity of individual letters might not be as powerful as one joining statement.” She asked if the University planned to take collective action with other institutions to oppose federal research funding cuts in the future.

Levin responded that “there are lots of discussions among universities about a range of collective actions and what the best collective way is for research universities to communicate the benefits of federally funded research on the country at large.” He also pointed to the two lawsuits that Stanford has worked to file with other institutions over cuts to research funding.

History professor Jessica Riskin wrote to The Daily that she and other members of Stanford’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter are “frustrated that President Levin declines to express his solidarity with hundreds of other university presidents.”

“Collective actions such as joint statements are essential to protecting any institution we hold dear, such as the institution of American higher education, against a brutal attack,” Riskin wrote.  “Moreover, we have a duty of solidarity to the universities currently at the focus of the attack and to all the less rich and powerful schools. We owe it to them to stand up and fight back publicly rather than try to negotiate a separate peace.”

Math professor Brian Conrad cited a recent statement by NIH Director and Stanford medicine professor Jay Bhattacharya M.D. ’97 Ph.D. ’00, which proposed making NIH research funding contingent on metrics of campus free speech. Conrad expressed concern that Stanford’s place in college free speech rankings could affect its research funding under Bhattacharya’s proposal.

In response, Martinez noted University leaders’ close relationship with FIRE president and CEO Greg Lukianoff, repeating Lukianoff’s sentiment from a meeting she had with him that “Stanford is an institution to look towards” in matters of campus free speech.

“The criteria for awarding NIH and other grants should be the merit of the researcher’s proposal, and not other things,” Martinez said. “FIRE itself has said that it would not be appropriate to use its rankings as a metric to award federal funding.”

Following this discussion, chemistry professor and Academic Integrity Working Group (AIWG) Faculty co-chair Jennifer Schwartz Poehlmann and student co-chair Xavier Millan ’26 gave a presentation on AIWG’s recent initiatives, highlighting its proctoring pilot program.

The program, which is one year into an implementation plan of 2-4 years, aims to promote best practices in exams, such as seating charts and student ID verification, in addition to rolling out live exam proctors.

According to Schwartz, the AIWG has conducted listening sessions with students in classes testing the pilot program, and found that the initiative “has relaxed the [test-taking] environment in a good way.”

“Students feel that the deliberate nature with which these guidelines have been structured make taking exams less stressful than in high school or previous institutions,” Millan said. 

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