An open letter to the Bucknell administration and board of trustees:
On behalf of the Bucknell AAUP (American Association of University Professors) Advocacy Chapter, we encourage our University Administration to take the following steps, as co-authored by the President, General Counsel, and Committee A Chair of the AAUP, toward supporting and protecting our international students and staff:
- As the AAUP [has] already noted in a public letter to the offices of general counsels, colleges and universities should not turn over personal student information in response to Title VI investigations.
- Bucknell should make a clear commitment to avoid voluntary cooperation or information sharing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agencies charged with facilitating deportation or other forms of immigration enforcement.
- Bucknell should make a clear commitment to not comply with Section 3 of the expanded Executive Order 13899, which calls for universities to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff relevant to those grounds and for ensuring that such reports about aliens lead, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to investigations and, if warranted, actions to remove such aliens.”
- Bucknell should keep international students enrolled in the event of visa revocation, legal status termination, detention, and/or deportation. Some chapters have already successfully advocated to make this happen.
- Bucknell should allow these international students and staff to continue their studies and research remotely, if necessary.
- Bucknell should ensure that graduate students and workers whose enrollment is contingent upon funding through graduate teaching appointments or fellowships can continue their coursework, research, and teaching appointments. This may mean that the college or university covers the increased cost of assigning additional teaching appointments to a graduate student not residing in the United States.
- Bucknell should devote resources to communicating reliable, timely information to international students and staff, including immediate notification of changes in their legal status.
- Bucknell should provide and pay for legal counsel for those students and staff whose visas have been revoked.
- Bucknell should work swiftly and affirmatively—through lawsuits, if necessary—to stop the termination of legal status of students and staff without any due process.
Your dedication and hard work on behalf of our students, staff, and communities will help protect them from the Trump administration’s terrifying orders.
In solidarity,
Ken Field, President
Sue Ellen Henry, Vice-President
Bret Leraul, Secretary-Treasurer