UChicago Must Advocate Against Trump's Ban on Individuals from Muslim-Majority Nations
The Issue
The University of Chicago Must Do More To Advocate Against Trump's Ban on Individuals from Seven Muslim-Majority Nations
The 1967 Kalven Report, which describes the University’s role in political affairs, states that “A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospital to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.” While the Report cautions that the University “cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness,” it also states, “from time to time instances will arise in which society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and values.”
Trump’s executive order threatens the very mission and intrinsic values of the University by preventing students from the targeted countries from being able to participate as free and equal members of our intellectual community. It will bar these students and faculty members from traveling in and out of the country, and it will prevent them from getting any necessary extensions on their student or work visas. It will also prevent accepted applicants from these countries from being able to attend UChicago.
The President of Columbia University issued a public condemnation on Sunday in keeping with the values upheld by our own University by decrying it as “discriminatory, damaging to America’s leadership in higher education, and contrary to our nation’s core values and founding principles.” The University of Michigan has refused to release the immigration status of its students. While the letter sent by President Zimmer to the White House Monday morning states that barring immigrants entry to the U.S. will "weaken the nation’s world-leading higher education institutions,” it also notes that it “appreciate the need” to address “a concern for national security” and simply urges that “the methods of doing so be examined and thought through carefully.” The University must leave behind such mild language to explicitly condemn this executive order, and it must take on far more active measures to defend its mission. Specifically, the University President Robert Zimmer should:
1) Publicly condemn President Trump’s Executive Order as a threat to the mission and values of the University.
2) Demand that President Trump, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of State immediately make a legal exception to this offensive ban for University of Chicago students and faculty, which is permitted under section 3(g) of the Executive Order, which states:
“the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.”
If the University fails to take active measures, it assents to the view that the individuals affected by the order constitute real threats to national security, it condones any limitations they may face in their intellectual pursuits at this institution, and it accepts the discriminatory spirit of the decree. The University’s willingness to zealously uphold its “commitment to academic freedom” against “the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’” and “so-called trigger warnings”—compared with its reluctance to condemn an executive order banning the entry individuals on the basis of nationality—betrays moral inconsistency at best and cowardice at worst. The University of Chicago has never openly discriminated against applicants on the basis of race or gender. It must continue to defend this proud history by fighting for its right to welcome students from all countries, and by standing up for its mission to foster a flourishing intellectual community that represents the widest diversity of voices and ideas.
A longer op-ed in support of this petition can be found in the Chicago Maroon here
The Issue
The University of Chicago Must Do More To Advocate Against Trump's Ban on Individuals from Seven Muslim-Majority Nations
The 1967 Kalven Report, which describes the University’s role in political affairs, states that “A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospital to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.” While the Report cautions that the University “cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness,” it also states, “from time to time instances will arise in which society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and values.”
Trump’s executive order threatens the very mission and intrinsic values of the University by preventing students from the targeted countries from being able to participate as free and equal members of our intellectual community. It will bar these students and faculty members from traveling in and out of the country, and it will prevent them from getting any necessary extensions on their student or work visas. It will also prevent accepted applicants from these countries from being able to attend UChicago.
The President of Columbia University issued a public condemnation on Sunday in keeping with the values upheld by our own University by decrying it as “discriminatory, damaging to America’s leadership in higher education, and contrary to our nation’s core values and founding principles.” The University of Michigan has refused to release the immigration status of its students. While the letter sent by President Zimmer to the White House Monday morning states that barring immigrants entry to the U.S. will "weaken the nation’s world-leading higher education institutions,” it also notes that it “appreciate the need” to address “a concern for national security” and simply urges that “the methods of doing so be examined and thought through carefully.” The University must leave behind such mild language to explicitly condemn this executive order, and it must take on far more active measures to defend its mission. Specifically, the University President Robert Zimmer should:
1) Publicly condemn President Trump’s Executive Order as a threat to the mission and values of the University.
2) Demand that President Trump, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Secretary of State immediately make a legal exception to this offensive ban for University of Chicago students and faculty, which is permitted under section 3(g) of the Executive Order, which states:
“the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.”
If the University fails to take active measures, it assents to the view that the individuals affected by the order constitute real threats to national security, it condones any limitations they may face in their intellectual pursuits at this institution, and it accepts the discriminatory spirit of the decree. The University’s willingness to zealously uphold its “commitment to academic freedom” against “the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’” and “so-called trigger warnings”—compared with its reluctance to condemn an executive order banning the entry individuals on the basis of nationality—betrays moral inconsistency at best and cowardice at worst. The University of Chicago has never openly discriminated against applicants on the basis of race or gender. It must continue to defend this proud history by fighting for its right to welcome students from all countries, and by standing up for its mission to foster a flourishing intellectual community that represents the widest diversity of voices and ideas.
A longer op-ed in support of this petition can be found in the Chicago Maroon here
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Petition created on January 30, 2017