To President Satish K. Tripathi, the UB Board of Trustees and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion:

On behalf of the LGBTQ+ graduate social work students and allies at the University at Buffalo, we request that you cancel Michael Knowles' appearance at UB on Thursday, March 9, 2023. Mr. Knowles used hateful inflammatory rhetoric against our transgender family in advance of his appearance, and it is our duty, according to the NASW Code of Ethics, to inform you that the university has an ethical responsibility to ensure the safe, equitable education of its most vulnerable students.    

On March 4, 2023, Knowles stated, “For the good of society … transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely — the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” This is hate speech, and is not protected under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. To call for the eradication of transgenderism, is to call for the eradication of a group of people, of a culture, and an identity.  

This is nothing less than a call for genocidal violence. This appears to us to be a clear violation of transgender students’ rights.

Will campus be safe for all students equally on March 9th? According to the UB Spectator, the YAF student organization has hired Excelsior Management for the event. We cannot help but wonder, who are they hired to protect?  

The website of the UB Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion states that UB “policy is in accordance with federal and state laws and regulations prohibiting discrimination and harassment.” According to state law (New York Executive Law § 291), equality of opportunity is a civil right. On Thursday, students will be affected unequally by the presence on campus of Mr. Knowles and those who want to hear him speak.

“The opportunity to obtain education [...] without discrimination because of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, military status, sex, marital status, or disability, as specified in section two hundred ninety six of this article, is hereby recognized as and declared to be a civil right.” 

This event has the potential to negatively affect vulnerable students’ who have already been targets of hate. LGBTQ+ people are 10 times more likely to be targeted by violent offenders (Fores, 2022). Clinical studies show that repeated trauma impacts a student’s ability to learn and therefore achieve, the very things this flagship institution of higher education is supposed to value (Bohannon, 2019). 

The speech Knowles is slated to give, during Women’s History Month, is titled, “How Radical Feminism Destroys Women (And Everything Else),” with the subtopic, “Men are Not Women.” 

We believe these topics were chosen to be purposefully provocative and cause chaos at the expense of our community.

We hold the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to its word and are eager to see its commitment to transgender inclusion in “our policies, our educational offerings, our resources and our interactions.”

Respectfully,

UB SSW LGBTQ+ Graduate Students and Allies

 

Bohannon, L., Clapsaddle, S., & McCollum, D. (2019). Responding to college students who exhibit adverse manifestations of stress and trauma in the college classroom. FIRE: Forum for International Research in Education, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.32865/fire201952164

Flores, A. R., Stotzer, R. L., Meyer, I., and Langton, L. L. (2022). “Hate crimes against LGBT people: National Crime Victimization Survey, 2017-2019.” PLoS ONE 17(12): e0279363. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279363

New York State. (2019). Executive Law § 291. https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/EXC/291

 

Video Resources: 

The Alt Right Playbook​

Fascism Is All Around Us: Jason Stanley​

Jacob Stanley: How Fascism Works