IFO Condemns President Trump's Executive Order

The IFO has embraced its leadership role in advocating for justice with regard to diversity, equity and inclusion and its support for marginalized faculty.  The IFO opposes Presidential Executive Order 13950, which attempts to bar much of the language used in diversity and anti-racism and anti-sexism training. The order characterizes anti-racism as a “divisive concept” which discriminates against white men and labels anti-racism “inherently racist and sexist.” We recognize the important anti-racism work happening in our institutions and throughout our society and find the order’s use of anti-racism language to attack anti-racism work as racist to be particularly insidious. While the order primarily targets workplace training programs, classroom instruction that includes these concepts (central to Ethnic Studies, History, Sociology and several other disciplines) has also been targeted by the White House. As always, we maintain unwavering support for academic freedom for faculty, and will defend the instructional expertise of faculty against any attempted censorship or restriction.