Dartmouth abstains from signing letter against federal funding cuts
Dartmouth College, the only Ivy League university that did not sign a letter condemning the Trump administration for trying to dictate policies and pausing billions of dollars in federal funding, said doing so would not have been an effective way to defend its mission and values.
College President Sian Leah Beilock instead wants to focus on the lawsuits the university is already involved in that address pauses in funding for the National Institutes of Health and a new Energy Department policy to reduce the funding of indirect costs of research grants to 15%, school officials said Wednesday.
“President Beilock does not believe that signing open form letters like this one is an effective way to defend Dartmouth’s mission and values,” university spokesperson Kathryn Kennedy said in an email.
More than 300 university and college presidents co-signed Tuesday’s letter, which condemns the Trump administration for following through on threats to pause billions of dollars in federal grants and research funding, in part to change schools’ policies and punish them for their handling of student protests.
Cuts targeting Harvard and Columbia came after allegations of antisemitism arose following last year’s student protests against Israel’s military action in the Gaza Strip.
College campuses across the United States erupted in protests a year ago as Israel continued to pound the Gaza Strip to root out Hamas fighters who carried out the Oct. 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
Last month, many Ivy League universities abruptly stopped hiring faculty members, partly prompted by fear of how the Trump administration’s funding cuts could affect them.
The swift and decisive decisions prompted the American Association of Colleges and Universities to write the letter to the Trump administration.
“We will always seek effective and fair financial practices, but we must reject the coercive use of public research funding,” the group wrote. “As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.”
White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said in an email that the administration is “standing up for equality and fairness and will not be swayed by worthless letters by overpaid blowhards.”
Columbia agreed to a list of demands by the Trump administration to start negotiations over restoring $400 million in federal funding that was stripped, but Harvard ultimately rejected a list of demands before it sued the administration this week.
