University of Minnesota Senate passes resolution to ask for legal partnership with Big Ten schools
The University of Minnesota Senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday to urge the administration to join a legal partnership with other Big Ten schools.
It’s a response to the Trump administration’s policies targeting higher education institutions.
“It’s clear that every moment we wait leaves us less equipped to respond,” said V.V. Ganeshananthan, a senator and professor in the College of Liberal Arts. “If the past 94 days are any indication, we must move swiftly to protect the institutions we hold dear.”
During the special University Senate meeting, senators passed a resolution asking President Rebecca Cunningham to “formally propose and help establish a mutual academic defense compact” among all 18 universities part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance.
“These are spaces that now face terrible danger,” said Ganeshananthan. “Including, but certainly not limited to, multiple investigations, threats to funding, threats to members of our international community, government overreach.”
The resolution calls for the schools to pool resources, including legal counsel, governance experts and public affairs offices.
Rutgers was the first to pass a resolution of this kind. Rutgers, along with the U of M, is among more than 50 higher education institutions under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education over diversity policies.
This week, the Trump Administration also issued a series of executive orders affecting colleges and universities, including stronger enforcement of federal law that requires colleges to disclose financial ties with foreign sources and a shakeup of accrediting bodies that decide whether colleges can accept federal financial aid awarded to students.
“These are extraordinary times and they call for extraordinary measures by institutions and their leaders,” said David Fox, a senator and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences professor, in support of the resolution.
There were concerns raised, however, about the process.
“I don’t see any leadership involved in this,” said Stacey Maher, a senator administrative director. “This feels very performative.”
Questions were also raised to President Cunningham about the cost of the shared defense fund.
“There’s not any clarity on how such a fund could be funded with public-state dollars,” said Cunningham. “I will just add also whether or not a fund is developed, rest assured, we are working across the Big Ten, across our AAU peers every day.”
The Senate voted 139 to 6 to approve the resolution; however, it is not binding.President Cunningham’s office did not provide information after the vote about the action she plans to take.
A University of Minnesota spokesperson said in a statement, “At its April 24 meeting, University of Minnesota faculty, staff and student senators discussed and voted to recommend a resolution to establish a mutual defense compact, which has also been taken up by other Big Ten faculty groups. The University’s shared governance groups are important advisors and regularly engage in substantive discussion of issues impacting our community, including offering non-binding resolutions for consideration.
Concurrently, the University of Minnesota administration is directly engaged with peer organizations such as the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the Big Ten Academic Alliance. These groups are supporting advocacy strategies for research universities like ours, regularly communicating with federal and state delegations, and actively challenging the legality of some federal directives.”
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS also reached out to each Board of Regents member for their comment.
James Farnsworth, the 4th Congressional District Regent, was the only regent to respond. He said, “As always, our University of Minnesota shared governance system has the right and responsibility to discuss, debate, and vote on recommendations to the administration and Board of Regents on matters of importance to the University. Ilook forward to reviewing the recording and minutes of today’s meeting and remain confident in the board’s current approach on these issues.”
