The Undergraduate Senate (UGS) introduced a resolution to condemn President Donald Trump’s executive orders against transgender and non-binary students and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in higher education at their Wednesday meeting.
The resolution urged the University to protect DEI related research and provide greater transparency on navigating federal restrictions. It also called on the University to continue practices that support all gender identities and protect policies that enable transgender athletes to compete in sports aligned with their gender identity.
The UGS proposed the resolution in response to Trump’s recent executive orders targeting DEI programs, mandating that federal agencies recognize gender as a male-female binary and withholding funding from educational institutions that permit transgender women to compete in female sports.
Following Trump’s executive orders, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) released new policies on transgender athletes on Feb. 6, stating that those assigned male at birth cannot compete for any female teams in the NCAA, regardless of gender identity. The same day, Stanford Athletics pledged to follow the NCAA’s new policy.
“This resolution strongly condemns Stanford Athletics pledging to adhere to the new NCAA orders,” said UGS co-chair Ivy Chen ’26. Chen said the resolution does not explicitly mention DEI because the term “has become a focal baggage.”
“This resolution is not tackling DEI itself. It’s tackling the underlying message of what DEI is,” Chen said.
UGS appropriations chair David Sengthay ’26 said Trump’s executive orders lack jurisdiction over the UGS.
“The Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) is not a part of Stanford University. Hence, any of Trump’s executive orders, whatever that man signs with a sharpie, does not affect what we can do in this body,” Sengthay said.
The UGS also presented a bill encouraging the University to expand financial and legal assistance for undocumented students, strengthen privacy policies to protect against immigration enforcement agencies and publish a protocol detailing how university administrators interact with external law enforcement agencies.
This new bill, UGS co-chair Gordon Allen ’26 said, does not include mentions of a “sanctuary campus,” which the UGS discussed in a previous meeting.
“Such language would bring more harm to campus because then we would be put under greater scrutiny, and also California is already a sanctuary state,” Allen said.
Next, UGS Faculty Senate representative Yoanna Hoskins ’27 presented a resolution to increase textbook affordability for students. The resolution calls for the expansion of the First-Generation and/or Low-Income Student Success Center’s (FLISSC) FLIbrary, a free textbook lending library, through a partnership with Green Library and a formal meeting with University financial aid leadership to discuss constraints on textbook funding.
According to the resolution, a 2023 UGS survey found that 62% of 147 respondents felt “deterred from enrolling in courses due to the cost of textbooks.”
“As someone who works at the FLISSC center and has interacted with folks looking for textbooks at the FLIbrary, it’s really disheartening to share, ‘Hey, we don’t have this textbook in stock,’ knowing that textbook costs $75,” Sengthay said.
The UGS also unanimously passed a resolution to expand courses fulfilling Creative Expression (CE) requirements to include wellness classes, including physical wellness and outdoor education classes. The resolution will not add additional course requirements for students. Chen hopes the expansion will take effect within the next school year.
The photograph posted in an earlier version of this article featured the Frosh Council, which did not present the resolution to support transgender athletes. The Daily regrets this error.