INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 142 No. 11
16 Pages – Free
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 2025 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Lifestyle
Theater thwarted
Housing and Residential Life closed Risley Theatre and its workshops for the Fall 2025 semester.
Dorm digs
Katie Istomin ’29 walks us through how students make dorm lounges feel like home.
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Ph.D. Student Questions Cornell After His Email Was Breached by DHS Amandla Thomas-Johnson fears his University-issued account was also accessed, though says Cornell refused to tell him
By BENJAMIN LEYNSE Sun News Editor
Nov. 4 — International graduate student Amandla ThomasJohnson had already fled the country in April 2025 over deportation concerns when he received two emails spaced 90 minutes apart. The first email, sent on May 8 from Cornell International Services, stated that his immigration status had been terminated by the federal government. The second email, sent from Google on the same day, notified him that his personal email account had been subject to a subpoena by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on March 31. Thomas-Johnson told The Sun that the question that immediately came to his mind was whether DHS had also accessed information from his Cornell Gmail account. Yet, when he later posed questions to both Cornell’s Media Relations office and to Cornell International Services, Thomas-
Johnson said they did not respond. “This is the big question — whether they were using our [Cornell] emails to track us as well,” Thomas-Johnson said. A peer of Momodou Taal, a fellow international graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist, Thomas-Johnson said the two “went into hiding” together when Taal sued the federal government over alleged First and Fifth Amendment violations last March. Taal later self-deported after he was told to surrender to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. During this period, Thomas-Johnson worried that his Cornell email was being monitored. “I think that was a factor in why they waited so long to suspend [my visa] last year because they knew what I was doing with Momodou, and I guess some of it [was] on my Cornell email address,” ThomasJohnson said. Yet for Thomas-Johnson, his main frustrations lie with the
University’s lack of response, adding that “Cornell’s part in this hasn’t been fully explained … I think they’re hiding quite a lot.” Per Google’s terms of service, if an account is managed by an organization, like the University, only the organization’s administrator, and not the individual, is notified when a request from a government agency is processed. When asked by The Sun if the University had received notification from Google that ThomasJohnson’s Cornell-issued Gmail account was subpoenaed by DHS, a Cornell spokesperson declined to comment. A Google spokesperson did not disclose to The Sun if ThomasJohnson’s University email was subpoenaed, but defended its decision to comply with the subpoena of his personal email. “Our processes for handling law enforcement subpoenas are designed to protect users’ privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokesperson told
The Sun. “We review all legal demands for legal validity, and we push back against those that are overbroad or improper including objecting to some entirely.”which disrupted a career fair featuring defense contractors Boeing and L3Harris. It was this protest activity that was later cited in federal
district court as cause for Taal’s removal from the country. To continue reading, please visit www.cornellsun.com. Benjamin Leynse can be reached at bleynse@cornellsun.com.
BENJAMIN LEYNSE / SUN NEWS EDITOR
Amandla abroad | Amandla Thomas-Johnson fled the country over deportation concerns in May 2025
Cornell’s Endowment Sees 12.3 Percent Return in FY 25 By KRISTIE TO Sun Senior Writer
SHAILEE SHAW / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
FY 25 financials | Cornell’s endowment for the 2025 fiscal year rose in value due to a 12.3 percent return.
Oct. 31 — Cornell reported a 12.3 percent return on its endowment for the 2025 fiscal year, according to a University statement released on Tuesday. The endowment’s total value rose from $10.7 billion in fiscal year 2024 to approximately $11.8 billion, according to Christopher Cowen, the University’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, and Kenneth Miranda, chief investment officer, in the statement. In April 2025, Cornell announced that the Trump administration had frozen $1 billion in federal funding, including more than 75 stop-work orders from the U.S. Department of Defense, amid investigations of civil rights concerns. This action triggered a University-wide cost-cutting wave among different colleges. In a recent interview with The Sun, President Michael Kotlikoff and Provost Kavita Bala said that Cornell currently faces about $250 million in federal stopwork orders and terminations, along with an additional $80 million owed to the University for programs where expenses have been incurred but not yet reimbursed by the federal government. In August, Cornell released a “Next steps for our financial future” statement spelling out urgent hiring freezes, spending restrictions and program reviews. In October, the College of Arts and Sciences announced
nearly $11 million in internal budget cuts, roughly 2.4 percent of its $456 million budget. Cornell’s endowment is limited to what it can fund each year. Every year, the University is only able to withdraw about 4.4 percent of the fund’s average value over the past 7 years, according to Cornell’s 20242025 Consolidated Financial Statements. According to the statement, in fiscal year 2025, the endowment contributed $439 million toward Cornell’s financial aid, research, academic programs, faculty salaries and facilities expenses that would otherwise be funded by sources like tuition. In fiscal year 2024, the endowment contributed $411 million toward these expenses, equivalent to about 7 percent of the University’s operating revenue. For the 2025–2026 academic year, Cornell allocated a record $463 million in institutional grants and scholarship aid that does not need to be repaid, “making Cornell more affordable for aided students than it was two decades ago,” according to the statement. Cornell enrolls more undergraduates than other Ivy League schools, and its endowment is significantly smaller on a per student basis than many peer institutions, ranking 71st among U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities surveyed in the 2024 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments. Kristie To can be reached at kto@cornellsun.com.