coe-staff: Recent expressions of concern about US immigration practices

[Randy Kamphaus]

Dear Faculty and Staff,

I will never forget the lone night when we were separated from our mother and father due to a family crisis.  It was a seemingly long night.  My brother, sister, and I were bewildered, frightened, and sleepless.  Some of you have had much more difficult separation experiences, but like me, these experiences convince you of the validity of scientific findings documenting the harm that can be experienced by children in such circumstances.  I refer you to the letter of concern from the American Psychological Association which provides a cogent summary of some relevant scientific findings (http://www.apa.org/advocacy/immigration/separating-families-letter.pdf).

Personally, I share the concerns of the faculty who have sent me messages these past few days about child separation from their family members.  As you may know from our experiences with similar public policy issues in the past, faculty are free to express their views and to join with others who do so. It is often the case that faculty come together within a discipline to make a statement of shared values or views on public policy issues. These efforts are typically organized on a peer-to-peer basis or by organizations affiliated with the discipline. We've seen this regularly with topics such as, gun violence, research support, or family separation policies.

There are prohibitions, limitations, and/or lobbying disclosure requirements on the use of public resources by public entities or grant funded entities in support of advocacy activities and/or political campaigns. For those reasons, we are typically discouraged from centrally organizing  college-wide statements on governmental issues or actions due to our status as a governmental entity.  Of course, the ability to share expertise, organize with peers, or take other actions as a private citizen are always a right that we preserve.

Please be aware that this issue continues to evolve (See https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigration-children-executive-order.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/20/us/politics/trump-immigration-children-executive-order.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>). Dianna Carrizales Engelmann, Jessica Roberts, and I will continue to monitor all internal university communications, discussions, or actions regarding this issue.  Please keep us informed as well.

Randy
c Offices of the President, Provost, Communications, Equity and Inclusion, and Federal Relations?

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