Eight faculty members in the physics department wrote an open letter on April 22 supporting a national statement by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) criticizing “unprecedented government overreach.” The faculty members’ letter stated their opposition to University president Jonathan Levin ’94’s decision to not sign the AAC&U’s statement.
The open letter from the faculty members, which has amassed over 200 signatures from fellow faculty, asserts that the Trump administration has taken a “fundamentally hostile” approach to universities. The letter states that the administration made funding decisions “on the basis of a political litmus test” and that its attempts to “stem the inflow of talented foreign students” present violations to due process and intellectual freedom.
“Actions underway, if they succeed, will be devastating to U.S. universities and our core mission of conducting research to advance human knowledge and to educate students who are the next generation of scholars and leaders,” wrote physics professor and co-author of the letter Peter Michelson in an email to The Daily.
Michelson was joined by physics professors Aharon Kapitulnik, Steven Kivelson, Andrei Linde, Xiaoliang Qi, Stephen Shenker, Eva Silverstein and Leonard Susskind.
The letter expressed solidarity with the AAC&U’s statement from April 21 opposing “overreach and political interference” in higher education and the “coercive use of public research funding.” The statement expressed support for an “exchange of ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”
The open letter also called out Levin’s decision to not sign “despite expressing informal agreement with its goals.”
“I don’t really understand the University’s reluctance to explicitly express solidarity with other universities,” said history professor Jessica Riskin. “The reality is that we are working with other universities through the AAC&U and other ways, which is wonderful, but I don’t really understand why President Levin is so reluctant to do it explicitly, to make common cause, to show solidarity.”
According to a statement to The Daily from Levin, he and Provost Jenny Martinez adequately expressed their perspective on the matters discussed in the AAC&U letter in an April 15 statement supporting Harvard amid threats of cuts to over $8 billion in funding from the Trump administration.
“I remain very disappointed that President Levin did not sign the AAC&U letter and still do not understand this decision, given his and Provost Martinez’s April 15 statement of support,” wrote Michelson. “Going forward, U.S. Universities must stand together against actions that threaten our very mission.”
The physics department’s letter called for the invocation of an exception to the institutional neutrality policy detailed in the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report, which acknowledges that “from time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” In these instances, the report states, “it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures.”
“When [something] has to do with the character and existence of the university, with the health of the university, I think we’re responsible to speak out as clearly as we can,” said physics professor Steven Kivelson, one of the letter’s co-writers.
Riskin said she would like the University to also make an explicit statement committing itself to take action to “protect international students and scholars from harassment, illegal revocation of visas and harassment of them [and] threats to their ability to remain studying and working at Stanford.”