Dear Members of the University Community,
For the second time in two months, the University of Rochester is joining the Association of American Universities (AAU), higher education organizations, and several peer institutions in asking a federal court to prevent one of our most significant public research partners from unilaterally imposing an across-the-board cap on negotiated funding rates, severely affecting our research mission.
With the AAU as the lead petitioner, we are joining Brown University, California Institute of Technology, Cornell University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Princeton University in filing suit against US Department of Energy (DOE). The agency announced on Friday, April 11, that it was both implementing a 15% cap on what are known as Facilities and Administrative (F&A) costs and undertaking separate action to terminate grant awards.
The DOE announcement threatens to jeopardize our institutional leadership in fusion, high-energy-density physics, laser science and technology, and the physical sciences, as well as our efforts in workforce development for Rochester’s photonics and optics industries. Reducing the F&A reimbursement rate to 15% represents about $25 million in annual DOE funding to the University.
We see the DOE announcement as an arbitrary violation of regulatory obligations and as a breach of contractual agreements negotiated in good faith with the agency. More importantly, the cap would almost immediately cause severe disruption to the research programs of the Laboratory for Laser Energetics as well as programs in the Hajim School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, the School of Arts & Sciences, and other operations of the University.
While the DOE litigation plays out, we expect that members of our University community will receive notifications regarding their support—potentially including termination or cancellation notices. Anyone who is contacted by DOE about their grants should share the information with Anthony Beckman, interim associate vice president for research and project administration, in the Office of Research Project Administration at abeckman@ORPA.Rochester.edu.
We have also published updated FAQs regarding the DOE announcement.
International Community
Also in recent days, we have learned that students, scholars, and staff from Afghanistan and Cameroon who were in the United States through a temporary protection program administered by the Department of Homeland Security may now face deportation, beginning May 20. On Friday, April 11, the department announced that the programs were ending, putting the immigration status of people in the programs in jeopardy.
The announcement follows updates from last week, in which we shared the news that federal authorities had begun to revoke—without communication with the University—the student visas and legal status of some of our students and scholars. This included the revocation of visas issued to all South Sudanese passport holders across the country, which impacted members of our community.
We want to reiterate that the staff of the International Services Office (ISO) are proactively monitoring the visa status of members of the University community. Staff from ISO and Student Life programs are reaching out to those we know to be impacted to connect them with resources to evaluate the best enrollment and legal options. Please see ISO’s updated travel and visa guidance.
Legal Updates
As we told you in February, we joined a suit asking a federal court to block a proposed 15% cap proposed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Thanks to the legal efforts of the AAU, higher education policy organizations, and 22 state attorneys general, the NIH was permanently enjoined earlier this month from implementing the cap while an appeal from the federal government is litigated. Like many of our peer institutions, we are also preparing appeals of funded awards which have been recently terminated or canceled by NIH.
With both petitions, we are taking legal action because the scientific, clinical, and technological leadership of the United States is the result of an incredibly productive partnership among federal agencies, public and private universities, and scholars, clinicians, and students across the country. As engaged citizens, we appreciate that our compact with funding agencies may need to be reviewed, but we believe the best way to do that is through conversation as colleagues and partners who want to continue to lead the world in research and discovery.
Our team in Government and Community Relations will continue to work with our elected representatives, leading policy organizations, and peers across the country to monitor federal directives and executive orders and will keep senior leaders informed of the latest updates.
I want to thank everyone for your patience and for your commitment to our institutional goals as we work to understand the effects of this year’s federal directives. I’m confident that our values and our belief in our mission—and in one another—will help us overcome challenges as we face them.
Sarah C. Mangelsdorf
President and G. Robert Witmer, Jr. University Professor