REGISTER FOR A SEAT 

(The GW DSC does not condone registering for seats you do not intend to use)

On November 17th, Turning Point USA Foggy Bottom, in collaboration with GW College Republicans, is hosting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at GW's Lisner Auditorium. RFK Jr. continuously spreads dangerous misinformation regarding autism and links its cause to vaccines, causing parents not to vaccinate their children and driving the spread of preventable diseases such as measles, which then kills innocent children and adults. He has  made statements such as "autism destroys families" and is an "individual tragedy as well." RFK has made racist and completely untrue statements, such as "African AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS", and compared the work of the CDC to "Nazi death camps." He also stated that exposure to pesticides causes people to become transgender. Regarding mental health, he has said that Americans who take mental health medications are "addicts who need to be sent to wellness farms to recover." 

Additionally, he fired all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He replaced them with vaccine skeptics, meaning that many vaccines that are currently covered by insurance could become out-of-pocket expenses and cost patients hundreds of dollars, blatant discrimination against lower-income communities. 

These are only a fraction of the hazardous claims that he has made. An open letter to Congress signed by more than 5,000 health employees from the US government called his rhetoric "dangerous and deceitful". 

GW's mission statement is "to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings of such research".

The mission statement of GW's Milken Institute of Public Health is to "advance population health, wellbeing, and social justice locally, nationally, and globally by: Applying public health knowledge to enhance policy, practice, and management; Conducting rigorous, basic, applied, and translational research".

The mission of GW's School of Medicine and Health Sciences is to "enhance the health and health equity of individuals and communities through world-class education, research from discovery through implementation sciences, and patient care. We actively pursue excellence in all areas of our mission".

Absolutely none of RFK's beliefs or policies align with the mission statements of his university. Any scientifically correct statements he has made are preceded by this misinformation, which leads to preventable deaths and causes discrimination against minority groups in this country and worldwide. 

We implore GW to bar RFK Jr. from speaking on our campus. Allowing him to do so would tarnish this university's reputation, its commitment to science, and the promotion of health in this country and globally. 

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/01/politics/rfk-jr-fact-check-confirmation-heading
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-statements-on-autism
https://www.bmj.com/content/390/bmj.r1804
https://19thnews.org/2025/06/rfk-jr-fires-vaccine-panel-replacements/
https://www.gwu.edu/university-mission-statement
https://publichealth.gwu.edu/about
https://smhs.gwu.edu/about/mission-vision