Sharing a message from Jay Garfield & 40+ other colleagues who already signed
If you are PU chairs of the American Academy of Religion, please consider sharing this with your unit’s members.
Dear Colleagues
Several of us are dismayed that the AAR is holding its annual meeting in Texas, given the state's denial of fundamental rights to women, its injuries to the LGBTQ community, and its abrogation of free speech in the classroom in the service of state ideology. Many organizations properly boycotted North Carolina several years ago in response to their "bathroom bill" that harmed the trans community, and that worked; the situation in Texas is much more serious and deserves at least as strong a response.
We have drafted the following letter, which we ask you to read and to consider signing:
The letter can be found here (together with the signees' comments at the end):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11MI5bxNbZS1woRznp9miSCFXBLXsyekVSIglI_dIlMU/edit
You can sign it through the following jotform, and it only takes a minute:
https://forms.gle/vUS52mjnvtgGorN17
*Please note that, in the jotform, there's a comment section where you can register your partial/conditional support, express your concerns, and propose alternative actions*
**Please contact Jay Garfield jgarfield@smith.edu for further information regarding the petition**