Congressman Dave Min of California’s 47th Congressional District hosted a town hall meeting in an Anteater Learning Pavilion lecture hall to discuss issues affecting UCI at 7 p.m. on May 29.
The meeting addressed how the current Trump administration is impacting UCI, namely regarding faculty terminations, suspensions of research funding, and the revocation of student visas. Senior Director for Sponsored Projects Administration of the UCI Office of Research, Jeff Warner, and UCI Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar discussed cuts to campus research and academics, and how the university is responding to them.
“From the very first days of the Trump administration, we, I think, realized that this was a very unusual time, that they were not following the rules or norms that every other president in the history of this country, certainly in modern history, has followed, and a lot of that has landed squarely on our higher education institutions,” Min told the audience.
In January, Trump issued a “temporary pause” to all federal financial assistance programs, including loans and grants to university infrastructure and research. A federal court blocked the action shortly before it was scheduled to take effect.
Since then, the Trump administration has continued cutting grants allocated to universities from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Health (NIH), resulting in a total of $40 million cut from UCI project funding, according to Warner. UCI graduate and postdoc students involved in 57 of the impacted projects have also been affected. Other federal agencies terminating funding include the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Office of Naval Research.
Highlighting his efforts in Congress, Min cited a bill he co-authored this month that, if passed, would create a private right of action for those impacted by the funding cuts, including faculty and students.
“It could go on and on and on, but we are trying to do everything we can right now, even though we are in the minority, even though we don’t have the power to pass laws, we don’t have the power to hold our own hearings,” Min said, referring to the current Republican majority in the House of Representatives. “We are doing all we can, but we need to get engaged in this fight.”
Attending the town hall, Alexander Rudenshiold — third-year film and media studies PhD candidate and a head steward for the student workers union UAW 4811 — shared what the union would like the university to do in the face of these cuts.
“The university initially contracted [scholars and researchers] for a certain amount of time, with the potential for renewal, right, and what’s happened is the university is pre, [laying] them off before the end of the contracts that they’ve been on,” Rudenshiold told New University.
“So we’re asking the university to honor those contracts through the end, and to find funding outside of the NSF grant to keep these workers on, to keep them doing the research that they have been doing for their entire time here.”
To address funding cuts, the university has been working with faculty to find ways to provide support for projects that have experienced the cuts, according to Warner. Issues he said are being investigated include how students are being impacted and whether institutional funding is needed.
“We are working closely with the Office of the Provost, who is taking the lead on managing these requests for institutional funding. There’s a group on campus that reviews these requests for institutional funding, including prioritizing things like graduate student support and postdoc support.”
Min condemned the administration’s actions toward international students, saying that they bypassed due process rights by relying on previous misdemeanors like traffic violations as a basis for issuing visa revocations. In April, UC President Michael V. Drake confirmed that approximately 50 students and recent graduates were directly impacted by the nationwide revocations.
“The loss of due process — and I know due process can be a legal term to a lot of folks — but what we’re talking about is just, you know, do you have basic rights so that we’re not just taking the government’s word at face value when they say you are guilty of doing X, or you’re breaking some law,” Min said, adding that he is part of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which he hopes will hold hearings on the recent deportations.
As a son of immigrants himself, Min asserted the value he sees in immigrants and how they have been a part of the American identity.
“I think we need to stand up and reassert that these are not just important values, but core values to America’s experience,” Min said. “Immigration, diversity — these are part of our lived experience as Americans.”
Editor’s Note: This article was edited on 6/10/2025 for corrections
Mariam Farag is a Features Staff Writer. She can be reached at msfarag@uci.edu.
Edited by Annia Pallares zur Nieden and Joshua Gonzales