CUIMC Stands Up Mission June 2025 

Mission: CUIMC Stands Up is a collective started in March 2025 of Columbia University Irving Medical Center faculty, staff, and students joined by allies from across the broader Columbia community committed to principled, visible opposition to the Trump regime’s authoritarian assault on science, healthcare, higher education, and freedom of speech. Our mission is to affirm—to our colleagues, students,  the broader academic and medical communities, and the public—that we will not remain silent or passive. While our university’s leadership has chosen to negotiate with this regime, we choose to act and speak out. With clarity, conscience, and solidarity, we stand in defense of our research, our teaching, our students, our international colleagues, and the core principles of free inquiry, academic self-governance, and the right to dissent.

Goals: While our specific objectives may evolve in response to changing conditions, our collective actions will continue to be guided by three overarching goals:

  1. Build our power.


    We aim to grow our base of faculty, staff (clinical, research, and support), and trainees at CUIMC; to engage and influence key institutional leaders such as department chairs and deans; and to strengthen alliances across the broader Columbia community—including Morningside, Zuckerman MBBI, Teachers College, Social Work, and Lamont-Doherty— as well as with students, alumni, and aligned faculty and staff at other universities across New York City, New York State, and the nation.

2. Hold university leadership accountable.

We will continue to urge CUIMC Deans, the Acting President, and the Board of Trustees to adopt and act on the core demands laid out in the following open letters:

    1. “Defense of Shared-Governance” (984 CU and CUIMC signatories)

    2. “Calls to Action for the Board of Trustees” (786 CU and CUIMC signatories)

    3. “Stand together against the external assault on Columbia University” (227 CUIMC signatories)

3. Defend public investment in science, healthcare, and higher education.

We will advocate directly to Congress against devastating proposed cuts to federal funding for research, healthcare, and workforce training—and we will mobilize public support by affirming the essential role of publicly funded science and education in a just and democratic society.

Recognition of Broader Context:  

This collective emerged in response to a sweeping campaign by the Trump administration to slash federal funding for scientific and health research it deems “inconsistent with priorities.” These decisions—targeting areas such as climate science, global health, and research on women’s and minority health—have been made unilaterally by political appointees, without consultation from scientific experts. At the same time, the administration has dismantled all federal initiatives aimed at addressing race- and gender-based discrimination, including diversity, equity, and inclusion programs—again, with no regard for expertise or the harm. 

These actions have been accompanied by a cynical and politically opportunistic narrative—one that emerged in response to rising student protests—claiming that antisemitism is rampant on college campuses, including Columbia.  Our collective unequivocally opposes all forms of systemic discrimination, oppression, and violence—including that directed at Muslim and Jewish people, and anyone targeted for their speech, identity, or beliefs. It is precisely because of this commitment, we reject the Trump administration’s weaponization of antisemitism.  In March 2025, the administration abruptly terminated numerous federally funded research projects at Columbia, stating: “This project has been terminated due to unsafe antisemitic actions that suggest the institution lacks concern for the safety and well-being of Jewish students.”  While framed as a matter of student safety, this allegation has functioned not to protect Jewish communities, but to suppress dissent, dismantle public institutions, and eliminate government-supported spaces for critical inquiry.  As many Jewish students at Columbia have publicly argued, this claim serves as a false pretense to persecute, detain, and even deport community members who exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and protest. 

We stand firmly in defense of free expression—especially when applied to the urgent and contentious matter of Israel’s war on Gaza and U.S. support for it. While members of our collective hold a range of perspectives on these issues, we are united in affirming the right of all individuals—students, faculty, staff, citizens, and noncitizens—to critique and debate governmental and institutional policies. Universities like ours are being targeted precisely because such critical engagement threatens authoritarian control.

Rather than defending its academic community, Columbia’s administration has chosen to “negotiate in good faith” with the Trump regime, thereby enabling the Trump agenda. Senior university leaders, including members of the Board of Trustees, have participated in or condoned doxxing campaigns campaigns, failed to protect student activists from ICE, and continued to engage with a regime that has openly declared its intention to dismantle institutions like ours. These are not isolated actions—they are part of a broader assault on democracy itself: ICE raids, detention of student protesters, exclusion of international scholars, attacks on universities and the judiciary, and the erosion of constitutionally protected rights.

What is happening at Columbia is not an exception—it is a warning. As members of an institution dedicated to the public good, and as individuals committed to human rights and academic freedom, our resistance is not just about protecting our research, our jobs, or our students. It is about defending the democratic foundations on which higher education—and a just society—depend.