Clark Faculty Sends Resolution To Condemn Trump's Executive Order

WORCESTER, MA — Clark University on Monday joined others in issuing an official resolution to condemn President Donald Trump's executive order cracking down on the more than 300 sanctuary cities across the country – including Massachusetts communities such as Somerville, Cambridge and potentially Boston.

Hundreds rallied on the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 31, at Worcester City Hall in a show of solidarity and support for the city's immigrants and refugees, the protest spilling over into the hallways of City Hall where a city council meeting was starting to tackle a "sanctuary city" issue.

On Tuesday, Clark University's faculty issued this resolution:

We, the faculty of Clark University, unequivocally condemn the executive order, Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, and associated statements issued by the Trump administration selectively denying admission to the United States on the basis of national origin and religious belief. Our University owes its greatness to a continued intermixing of faculty, staff, and students born in different countries, or whose forebears were born outside the United States and came to the country seeking refuge and opportunity. Our very identity as an institution leads us to view this order as a tremendous error that will weaken, not strengthen, our democratic institutions.

The order embodies prejudice, heartlessness, religious and racial discrimination, and a clear misreading of the modern history of violence on U.S. soil. In short, we deem this order un-American and antithetical to freedom of inquiry, social justice, and other values at the core of a liberal arts education. It is not simply that we stand in solidarity with all those affected by this order, including current and former students; it is that we are an academic institution whose success, identity and principles are based on immigration, internationalism and learning across our many differences.

We call on President Trump to rescind this ignoble order immediately.

Photo via Clark University