GSO urges Syracuse University to defend academia against Trump attacks
At the penultimate meeting of its 57th session, SU’s Graduate Student Organization urged Chancellor Syverud to form a Mutual Academic Defense Compact. This comes in response to ongoing attacks on higher education by the Trump administration. Christian Calabrese | Staff Photographer
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Syracuse University’s Graduate Student Organization called on Chancellor Kent Syverud to establish a Mutual Academic Defense Compact during its penultimate meeting Wednesday night.
The defense compact is a GSO resolution advising SU to take immediate action and encourage partnering institutions, including Cornell University, the University of Connecticut and Pennsylvania State University, to commit funding and resources to a shared defense fund.
Senator Samuel Prescott said the defense compact is in response to President Donald Trump’s attacks on the right to free speech, funding and the curriculum in higher education.
The defense compact will be submitted to the University Senate and presented to Syverurd, Prescott said.
“Every day the university sleeps on a measure like this, sleeps on the opportunity to form a defense compact, is another day that the federal government can hear to get word of any activity at a university that does not align with what they think is appropriate,” he said.
Following the Big Ten Academic Alliance, Prescott said he proposed the defense compact to ensure SU and partnering institutions share legal, financial and public affairs resources in the face of potential legal or political attacks.
Prescott emphasized the urgency of the defense compact. He said the Trump administration will do whatever it can to cut funding, restrict resources and take away the legal status of international students.
“I’m hoping the chancellor will come out like other chancellors have and take a real stance against the incursions that are currently happening from the federal government,” Prescott said. “Hopefully that will extend down through university leadership, even department leadership is eerily quiet on the whole matter.”
Syveruud did not include his name in the letter condemning Trump’s actions, signed by over 560 universities. GSO President Daniel Kimmel said they hope the defense compact encourages other campus organizations, such as the Student Government Assembly, to pass similar resolutions and help build a collective understanding.
“I do hope that it does make it to upper administration and that they begin the work to form both regional alliances with other institutions around here, but also our institutional peers,” Kimmel said.
Alongside the resolution, GSO passed a Declaration of Independence separating itself from SU. The declaration makes GSO a separate entity, operating outside university regulations for registered student organizations.
Declaring independence grants GSO the right to remove elected SU faculty advisors by majority vote, select graduate student representatives to the Board of Trustees and authority to set and allocate graduate student activity fees.
“I think it’s very important to recognize the need for a space in which graduate students can come together, discuss their own affairs, govern their own affairs with little to know interference from any other constituency,” Kimmel said.
GSO has operated under SU since 1968, aiming to represent the graduate student body and to promote its best interests. Under SU’s governance, GSO has been restricted by certain policies and initiatives, according to the resolution.
Agathe Baggieri, a senator representing the French department, said GSO distancing itself from SU will benefit language departments in particular by distancing itself from the “threat” of the current administration.
“For languages in general, because we are a field of study that is very threatened by the current administration, so knowing that organizations like the GSO can reaffirm their position and their independence brings hope,” Baggieri said.
Over the past decade, a series of administrative policies and developments have subjected GSO to increased oversight, Internal Vice President Roger Rosena said. Graduate students were denied the right to elect representatives and a board of trustees — a process GSO has practiced since the 1970s, Rosena said.
GSO will hold its final meeting of the spring 2025 semester on May 7.
