FSU Executive Committee's Statement of Solidarity With Those Impacted By President's Executive Order on Immigration

FSU Executive Committee Statement of Solidarity (approved February 25, 2017)

The FSU Executive Committee condemns in the strongest terms the Executive Order (EO) that enacted a 90-day suspension of visas and other immigration benefits to all nationals of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. 

As is stated in our bylaws, the FSU is “committed to maintaining an atmosphere in which teaching, research and service to the public can be carried forward at high levels of excellence.” Our membership includes faculty and librarians from many different parts of the world including those covered by this travel ban. Furthermore, given that we are faculty and librarians at a public university, our members are committed to promoting educational opportunities for and enabling academic achievement of our diverse students.

The EO directly challenges that central charge of the FSU, by placing our faculty and our students at risk. Faculty and students have already been impacted by this ban. The discriminatory EO produces anxiety, generates uncertainty, and targets many of our students and members. Furthermore, effects are experienced more broadly, not only by those directly affected by the ban, as the EO creates a fear-infused atmosphere which is a barrier to teaching and learning at the levels of excellence to which we are committed. The EO directly affects the working conditions of our members, as it creates serious obstacles for our faculty to properly conduct their teaching and research, and limits the collaboration with educators and researchers from these nations by restricting their entry to the US. Thus, it directly affects the ability of our students to benefit from their education and achieve academic excellence. In addition, the ethnic and religious profiling fueled by the EO violates the values and principles that we hold in our Union. 

In this statement we want to make clear that the FSU stands in solidarity with our members and students directly affected by the unjust and discriminatory EO and with all refugees and immigrants who have been negatively impacted and endangered. We strongly reject this ban, express our solidarity with the different on-campus and off-campus efforts to defend vulnerable members of our communities, and commit ourselves to taking concrete actions to prevent the harm to our members posed by this policy. We will begin exploring ways to do this and welcome suggestions from our members about how best to do so.

The FSU will continue to represent the interests of ALL of our teaching faculty and librarians not only regardless of their immigration status but with special awareness of the circumstances, threats, and burdens that asymmetrically impact some of our members. We will continue to raise our voice, and join the other forces on this campus and elsewhere that actively fight against discriminatory labor policies. For inquiries regarding this statement, or to communicate with the Executive Committee of the FSU, please write to FSU@umb.edu

Executive Committee of the FSU