The University of Hawaii has lost $30 million in federal funding for research, just as the school sees the number of revoked student visas “literally (change) by the hour,” according to a Thursday announcement made by UH President Wendy Hensel.
At a Board of Regents meeting at Kapiolani Community College on Thursday, Hensel announced that as of Tuesday the cuts had affected more than 40 employees and gutted 36 research programs related to “diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, sustainability, renewable energy, climate change and minority health disparities.”
In addition to the $30 million already lost, she said the 10- campus system possibly could lose $26 million in federal funds this fiscal year with more recent research funding cuts from the federal Department of Energy.
“We anticipate the number of affected programs will grow in the coming months and that by August, we will have a clearer picture of the full scope of the impact, which will likely include additional job losses,” Hensel said. “I am happy to say that at this moment, UH remains financially stable because of our reserved funds and careful financial planning in the past.”
The culminating months of concern brought more than 100 students and faculty Thursday to a rainy, wet gathering at UH Manoa’s John Henry Wise Lawn at a National Day of Action for Higher Education event. Attendees heard from guest speakers, enjoyed music and wrote poetry, joining around 80 universities across the nation to advocate for academic freedom and free speech on college campuses.
The event is an annual day of national organizing, but at UH, Joon-Oh Ahn, a graduate student studying political science, said the timing of this year’s gathering had a “different necessity.”
While exact reasons for why international student visas at UH were revoked remain unclear, the national chatter of some students on the mainland being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement due to political activism, particularly supporting Palestinians in the war in Gaza, has caused concern at the Manoa campus.
Ahn said that he knows undergraduate and graduate students who are fearful of their noncitizen status, many taking to self-purge social media accounts of language that could be considered out of line with the Trump administration.
“This is a shared commitment to protect freedom of speech, it is a shared commitment to academic freedom,” Ahn said. “Even if we have people that disagree (politically), we should all agree on the fact that nobody should be afraid to be at the conversation, nobody should be punished for being at the conversation.”
Organizers of Thursday’s event included UH chapters of the Academic Labor Union, Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine, Environmental Justice Club and the Indigenous Student Association, all who manned booths with snacks, drinks and flyers, sometimes pausing to join intermittent chants of “Free, free Palestine” and “Free, free Hawaii.”
Dean Saranillio, an associate professor of political science at UH Manoa, said the university is “under attack.”
“It’s really important for events like this to stand in solidarity,” Saranillio said. “There’s a lot of fear and anxiety amongst the faculty and students and staff, especially those who are noncitizens, and for this reason it’s important to be together and have actions like this.”
Mahina Robbins is a graduate student of volcanology who spends most of her time in the lab. She said she doesn’t consider herself politically active, but felt compelled to show up to the day of action for her international peers, many of whom have stopped advocating against funding cuts to science organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Robbins, who is originally from Washington, took to the stage as an on-and-off emcee and told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that as an American citizen she feels it is essential to put her name and face “up there” if it means voicing concern for her international peers.
“Maybe I’ll get doxed, but if I’m one of 15 or 30 people who speak up today, come on. I have to try,” Robbins said. “To me it’s more important now, because it’s impacting the people that I love, and the threat, the fear, is real.”
The Star-Advertiser was unable to determine how many, if any, international students attended Thursday’s event.
While some students and faculty at the event advocated for the UH administration to hire immigration attorneys to advise and assist international student, staff and faculty, Hensel said at Thursday’s meeting that “we are doing everything in our power to support these students, including advocating for them at the federal level where possible, and identifying pro-bono legal services that may be available to them.”
Saranillio said that while he knows the university administration is “doing everything they can to deal with those threats,” he and his students still feel afraid and uncertain.
“The worst-case scenario is that we don’t feel that the university is doing enough, but I don’t think we are at that point,” Saranillio said. “They have been immediately responsive to our requests for clarification; they have been immediately responsive to asks in terms of protecting noncitizen faculty, staff and students. There are certain things we wish they could be more firm about, but the worst-case scenario is that we end up fighting against each other, because the only group that ends up benefiting from that are the people who put us in this situation from the beginning: essentially, the Trump administration.”
Hensel is set to have a forum Monday at the UH Manoa Campus Center Ballroom to provide updates and answer questions on federal policy changes, immigration services and the university’s response.
“It is important to keep the conversation going with our community, share what we know, and outline the steps we’re taking to safeguard our students and the university,” Hensel said in a statement.
