I’m not the most likely defender of Cornell University. For the last 20 years, first as a student activist, and then during a decade as mayor of Ithaca, New York, I have been one of Cornell’s biggest critics.
As a former local official, I firmly believe that universities should pay property taxes. When I was mayor, I often took Cornell’s leadership to the woodshed about the university’s responsibility to support the infrastructure and city services the institution and its students rely on — something the university does partly through negotiated agreements.
What President Trump is doing with his attack on Cornell and other universities is not about tax policy or budgets. It’s not about antisemitism. It is just fascist bullying.
The Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to punish and take virtually complete control of institutions like Columbia and Harvard are dictatorial in a way that should be utterly shocking in this country. The people who used to warn us about “big government” are now trying to dictate hiring, police classroom teaching and force the expulsion of students for expressing ideas that counter official ideology.
The sad fact that such moves are no longer surprising is a brutal commentary on how aggressively authoritarian the first three months of the Project 2025 presidency have been.
Some good news is that more than 200 colleges and universities, including Cornell, have signed a letter slamming political intrusion in our higher education system. The civil rights community is also demonstrating the kind of solidarity we will need across civil society as the Trump administration expands its repressive reach.
Taken together, the Trump regime’s attacks on universities and their freedom could topple one of the last great pillars of U.S. exceptionalism — that people in every nation on Earth dream of sending their kids to our schools. That would be a massively self-destructive move.
Speaking of self-harm, it’s hard to argue that the threatened funding cuts and stop-work orders Cornell has received on more than 80 research grants are going to be good for our country. Among the initiatives put on hold, as reported by the Ithaca Voice, were projects to use real-time sensor data to prevent mid-air collisions of airplanes and spacecraft, address vulnerabilities in the U.S. semiconductor supply chain and develop cutting-edge cancer treatments.
In addition, the Trump administration’s unilateral and illegal refusal to pay negotiated and contracted indirect costs for research undermines the infrastructure and staffing that keep universities functioning. Cornell and other universities have sued over the cuts to negotiated costs.
The scientists and researchers are not the only people who will be harmed if their work is dismantled; it is all of us who stand to benefit from the research they are carrying out.
And maybe less obviously, Trump’s moves to undermine colleges and universities will hurt the people he claims to represent.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance pretend that they are attacking America’s universities as some kind of populist battle against elitists on behalf of the “forgotten people” rather than an effort to silence and suppress potential voices of opposition to their dictatorial ambitions.
In reality, universities are often the major economic drivers in their communities and regions — blue, purple or red. Cornell employs more people in Tompkins County than the rest of the top 10 employers combined. And it has a major economic impact in the five surrounding Republican-voting counties.
It’s not just about the thousands of people directly employed by the university. It’s about the small businesses that depend on spending by students and visitors. It’s about people working for startup companies that are being nurtured by incubators and accelerators. Cornell supported over 31,000 regional jobs in 2022 and 2023.
In response to Trump’s attacks and additional threats, Cornell instituted a freeze on hiring in February. Who is likely to be more hurt by that action, the professors and administrators Trump and Vance like to demonize, or the people who support their families through non-academic campus jobs in transportation, food service, security, office support, and more?
Blue-collar Cornell employees who live in 60-40 Trump counties and voted for the president might soon find themselves wondering whether they made the right choice for themselves and their families — and for the country.
Svante Myrick is president of People For the American Way.
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