National day of action speeches, Bruce Monger

The April 17 National Day of Action had a great turnout at Cornell. We had speakers from across the university, in the sciences, humanities and social sciences, and the law school. We reprint some of these here.

I need to begin my speech with a bit of a history lesson before I can deliver my punchline at the end of my speech that attempts to inspire you to raise your voices in support of Cornell resistance to the current government overreach.

The last time I spoke (with a bullhorn) at a rally like this was back in 2001 when students from the KyotoNow student organization held rallies in front of Day Hall asking Cornell to demonstrate climate leadership by committing to reducing campus emissions consistent with the reductions prescribed in the Kyoto Protocol. After 3 days of rallies, the Cornell administration finally agreed to the reductions. Cornell was the first university in the country to make such a commitment! Then in 2016, Cornell committed to go much further by developing a plan to make the campus carbon neutral by 2035. That same year (2016), former President Hunter Rawlings, gave a speech at a Sustainable Campus Conference where he acknowledged the efforts of KyotoNow students who pushed him to try harder at reducing emissions. The point here is that your voices and bottom-up social action can work to make a better world!

In the ocean class I cover threats of climate change and describe the extraordinary efforts in emission reduction that we must undertake to avoid the worst impacts. I go on to tell students that every so often a generation is called upon to do something extraordinary. I remind them that in 1940 a generation was called upon to rise up and fight a world war to save the democracies of the world. I then then tell them that a new generation – this generation — is now being called upon to do something even more extraordinary, to rise up and decarbonize the global energy system by mid-century to save all of humanity!!

However, it now seems that before we can save all of humanity, we first need to save our own democracy. The threats to Cornell and all US Universities being made by the current presidential administration represents the opening attacks on the freedoms of all Americans.

I share Harvard President’s views that it would be unethical to let politics (right or left) dictate what, where, when and how a university teaches and does research. It is government overreach, and we should stand together and resist it.

I tell ocean students that the historic times we live in today will test us all — both collectively and individually. We can choose to shrink back and be small or we can choose to stand our ground in support of academic freedom and the values that underpin the freedom of all Americans.

What Can You Do?

Students who have taken my ocean class know that I am a big fan of writing letters!

So, I encourage you to write or call government leaders and ask for their leadership and action to protect the freedoms of Cornell and other US Universities.
And I especially encourage you to write letters to Cornell’s President and the Trustees in support of resisting the political pressure campaign against Cornell and other US universities.
Tell them what it would mean to you personally if they chose to resist government overreach. Tell them the pride you would feel for Cornell.
I am sure Cornell leaders are under a lot of stress these days. And I think they could all use some notes of support.
If you find it difficult to get your letter sent off, then send it to me. I’ll print them all out and personally deliver them to the Cornell leadership.

I would like to conclude with a short story that will bring this speech full circle. About 4 years ago I gave a webinar talk for Cornell Alumni. I talked about impacts of climate change on the ocean and concluded with a call for bottom-up action to demand leader act on climate change. And I included to KyotoNow story and how they push the Cornell Administration to try harder to reduce emissions that has led to the 2035 Climate Action Plan to make the Ithaca campus carbon neutral by 2035. When I got home from giving my talk I had an email in my inbox from Abby. In that email were these words:

“Thank you, Bruce. I just watched your webinar and was literally moved to tears. I was one of those Kyoto Now! students twenty years ago that you spoke about, and my name is at the base of the clocktower for the solar panels that were installed on Day Hall. I have watched with pride as Cornell has continued on the path that was set in motion that week you described and was touched that you talked about it.”

So, Abby acted when she saw the need – the historic moment! And because she acted, she now gets to cry sweet happy satisfied tears 20 years later! We are once again at one of those important moments in history and I hope you all act now. I hope 20 years from now you can all look back this moment in time and cry sweet happy satisfied tears because you acted when you saw the need!

Thank You!

Bruce Monger is the Stephen H. Weiss Provost’s Teaching Fellow & Senior Lecturer, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

AAUP v. Rubio

https://www.aaup.org/news/aaup-briefs-defend-independent-legal-system-reject-ideological-deportations

The national as well as several chapters are suing Rubio.

This week, the AAUP and allies filed two separate friend-of-the-court briefs.

With the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, the AAUP submitted a brief supporting the law firm Perkins Coie in its battle against the Trump administration. Perkins Coie was the subject of an executive order which limited the law firm’s ability to represent government contractors and access federal buildings. Unlike some of the biggest US law firms, who have struck deals with the Trump administration, Perkins Coie sued the Trump administration. The court temporarily blocked the order and is now considering a motion for summary judgment that would permanently enjoin the enforcement of the order. More than 500 law firms have submitted another friend-of-the-court brief, as has the American Civil LIberties Union and a number of other parties, arguing in favor of blocking the order. The AAUP’s brief focuses on the harms that will be caused if lawyers are afraid to take on cases or make certain arguments for fear of retaliation by the government, and discusses the dangerous position taken by the administration through its casual invocation of national security to justify all manner of actions and to push back against robust judicial review. Read the brief here.

To fortify our lawsuit AAUP v. Rubio, thirty faculty groups, including seventeen AAUP chapters, organized to join an amicus brief urging a preliminary injunction against ideological deportations of students and scholars. AAUP members from public and private institutions, from community colleges and research universities, from Texas to Minnesota, California to New Hampshire, and points in between are exercising solidarity to protect students and co-workers. Read the amicus brief here.

Here’s a statement from the MIT AAUP, one of the chapters that joined the amicus brief.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRr5lcMp9axltMvx1tyh-9rUkafFum4j5zu2yRauAlRCDsmgi_Uprc-tbllG4az6XenkCDXjM8tGJvr/pub

Cornell faculty in support of democracy and academic freedom

The brazen assault on academic freedom sweeping across the country has again got Cornell in its sights.

There is a letter to the Cornell board of trustees circulating right now, and we urge all Cornell faculty to sign it.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScCQXl77TWPhipU1-BDIl4RjXJfnjtbBRsRQZS1aYEHg_m2Sg/viewform?fbclid=IwY2xjawJmArJleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHlyrWHA6jW86CBJJcBHosEa3xZLZYUgP0KHVV3YGyN0JbHkfvIgDgigZB-xe_aem_38-jfNWB7O_LR-2rqcZB_A

For some of the legal context, you should check out some of Michael Dorf’s posts, on Columbia and on the AAUP filling the void left by Columbia’s capitulation.

See also the longer statement co-authored with other constitutional law scholars.

Under Title VI, the government may not cut off funds until it has

conducted a program-by-program evaluation of the alleged violations;

provided recipients with notice and “an opportunity for hearing”;

limited any funding cutoff “to the particular program, or part thereof, in which…noncompliance has been…found”; and

submitted a report explaining its actions to the relevant committees in Congress at least thirty days before any funds can be stopped.

These requirements aim to ensure that any withdrawal of funds is based on genuine misbehavior on the university’s part—on illegal toleration of discriminatory conduct, not just on allowance of First Amendment–protected expression. The requirements aim to make clear to recipients of federal funds just what behavior can form the basis for sanctions. And each of the requirements aims to make sure that the sanction fits the offense.

Yet here the sanction was imposed without any agency or court finding that Columbia violated Title VI in its response to antisemitic harassment or discrimination. Even to the extent that some protesters’ behavior amounted to illegal harassment of Jewish students, no agency and no court has concluded that Columbia illegally failed to reasonably respond to such discriminatory behavior—much less failed to act at a level justifying withdrawal of nearly half a billion dollars in funds. The government’s action therefore risks deterring and suppressing constitutionally protected speech—not just illegal discriminatory conduct.

CGSU-UE letters to community

More resources from CGSU-UE – the graduate student union endorsed by over 90% of the student body. The university administration has shared loudly and widely its perspective. Here’s the other side.

https://cornellgradunion.org/adminletter

Board of Trustees:

The current federal administration’s funding cuts pose an unprecedented threat to scientific research and the infrastructure of higher education. As stated clearly in the recent email from Cornell Leadership, “if the research capabilities of America’s universities are destabilized and undermined in this way, no institutions will be capable of filling the void of discovery and innovation as a public good.” We agree completely that this proposed removal of funding constitutes an existential crisis to research and teaching. The standards of excellence in research and teaching at Cornell are at risk, as are the livelihoods of the workers who maintain them.

During this moment of crisis, Cornell has the opportunity to play a defining role in protecting education and science against our current administration. We need it to rise to the occasion. If federal cuts to research funding proceed, we call on Cornell’s administration to draw on its considerable financial resources, including but not limited to its $10.7 billion endowment, to ensure that research and teaching continue uninterrupted.

We came to Cornell for its dedication to its mission to “discover, preserve and disseminate knowledge” and arrived committed to advancing human knowledge and higher education with our work. Cornell’s administration can honor the academic mission of this institution and the people who do this work by committing to offset any losses incurred due to federal funding cuts. Now is the moment for Cornell’s administration to embrace its responsibility as a leader in research and education. …

More at the link!

Another letter is for the wider Cornell community:

CGSU-UE Calls on Cornell “To Do the Greatest Good” for Scientific Progress

Federal courts have halted the National Institutes of Health’s catastrophic funding changes, in part thanks to a lawsuit undertaken by Cornell and other university plaintiffs. This lawsuit is a meaningful stand in defense of science and a practical step to protect the University and those who work here, but its effects are temporary. NIH leadership has stated that the Institute will “effectuate the administration’s goals over time,” making it only a matter of time before we face last week’s funding crisis again.

Beyond the NIH, United States Agency for International Development-dependent projects are in limbo, executive orders are piling up and the research infrastructure that drives scientific progress across the nation is, if not actively crumbling, at risk. During this crisis, Cornell has the opportunity to play a defining role in protecting education and science against our current administration, and we — graduate workers, participants in American society and drivers and beneficiaries of scientific advancement — need our university to rise to the occasion. As federal funding cuts proceed across agencies, we call on Cornell’s administration to draw on its considerable financial resources, including but not limited to its $10.7 billion endowment, to ensure that research and teaching continue uninterrupted across Cornell.

Cornell is a private institution with extensive financial resources. Expert financial stewardship has protected the University during troubling times, and, in recent years, ensured unprecedented investment returns. Cornell’s financial health must be maintained of course, and the value of the endowment must continue to grow — but not for the sake of growth alone, but for the sake of, in Ezra Cornell’s words, “the greatest good.” Cornell’s administration has reminded the University community of the endowment’s purpose repeatedly. It is a “perpetual and self-sustaining source of support for the University and its mission,” designed to protect and advance the University’s workings, especially during times of trouble, explained then-chief financial officer Joanne DeStefano MBA ’97 in 2020. We recognize these parameters. But, should the federal government continue wreaking havoc on the federal agencies that fund our research, the devastation to Cornell’s research community, and to the scientific progress writ large, will be enormous. To protect science against the most aggressive attack we’ve witnessed in decades, Cornell’s administration must draw on its extensive financial resources to ensure research continues uninterrupted. …

More at the link!

GUEST ROOM | CGSU-UE Calls on Cornell “To Do the Greatest Good” for Scientific Progress