GPSA R12 (2024-2025): Protecting LGBTQ+ Students

Acknowledged by the President

• Resolution:
  GPSA R12 (2024-2025): Protecting LGBTQ+ Students
• Day:
  June 30, 2025
• Action:
  Acknowledged by the President
• Summary / Notes:
• File Attachments:
• Text Attachment:

  Dear Nicholas,

  Thank you to Ocean and the GPSA for conveying Graduate and Professional Student Assembly - Resolution 12 (2024-2025): Protecting LGBTQ+ Students. I appreciate and share the GPSA’s commitment to the safety and security of our LGBTQ+ students, as well as GPSA’s interest in the wellbeing of the broader Cornell community.

  We are committed to continuing to support our LGBTQ+ students through critical campus organizations and spaces such as the Centers for Student Equity, Empowerment and Belonging, including the LGBT Resource Center, as well as through our ongoing institutional support for LGBT communities via LGBT programs, benefits, and resources dedicated to advancing student wellbeing and advocacy. Our newly centralized Cornell Office of Civil Rights will handle complaints by community members of allegations of bias, discrimination, and harassment, as well as other misconduct.

  Cornell Health continues to update its patients about changes and modifications to gender-affirming care. Up-to-date information can be found on the Cornell Health gender-affirming care webpage. 

   Cornell remains dedicated to our core values and to our guiding principles during this time, including our commitments to opportunity and access and to diversity as a driver of Cornell’s excellence. As shared in our guiding principles, “[w]e remain committed to ensuring equal opportunity for all students, faculty, and staff, without regard to race, gender, or any other characteristic protected by law. We will continue to convey this commitment to nondiscrimination in communications and our activities.” 

   As the federal landscape continues to evolve, changes to how Cornell must comply with the law are updated on the Executive Orders page. The University cannot provide legal counsel to individual community members in connection with their personal legal challenges, including those related to aspects of their identity. As noted in my response to GPSA Resolution 10, a “student’s identity status is not a relevant factor under the Student Code of Conduct when the University Hearing and Review Board considers appropriate sanctions after a finding of responsibility. The university will continue to follow the Code and its associated procedures to ensure that the conduct system protects the community’s interest in enforceable conduct expectations and standards.”

   I reiterated our commitment to FERPA in my response to GPSA Resolution 10: “We continue to follow university policy and federal law regarding the protection of sensitive personal information, including FERPA.” The Office of the University Registrar website details the disclosures permitted by FERPA, and as shared in guidance available on Cornell’s Executive Order site, “absent a valid judicial subpoena or warrant, or as otherwise required by law, the university generally will not release information to any agency or provide consent to agents to enter any areas where students, staff, and faculty work or live.” 

  Thank you to the GPSA for their commitment to the safety and security of all of our community members. 

  Sincerely, 

  Michael Kotlikoff