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March 27, 2025
Dear Interim President Groves,
We write to you as concerned members of the scholarly community here at Georgetown. Recent actions taken by the Trump administration represent a clear political intrusion on the academic autonomy of our research and teaching activities and the broader community that these contribute to. Perhaps most concerningly: our colleague Badar Khan Suri was abducted outside his home by Department of Homeland Security agents on March 18th, though he is in the country legally under an educational visa and has not been accused of a crime.
As the dedicated faculty and teaching, professional, and research staff of Georgetown, we agree wholeheartedly with your commitment to continuing the mission of the University and defending its core values in the face of these rapidly escalating attacks. Your recent (March 25) letter to the Georgetown community rightly highlights our institution’s valuable commitment to free and open inquiry as well as cura personalis, which emphasizes human dignity and attending to the well being of each person in our community. The Georgetown AAUP chapter believes that advancing these values will require not just continuing our research and teaching as usual, but taking on a vigorous position against federal interference. In particular, as the search for a new university president progresses, we seek affirmation that both you and our next president will actively defend the mission of the university with both words and deeds.
We believe it is clear what such an active defense of our shared values entails in the present moment:
Georgetown University seeks to promote scholarship freely based on inquiring minds, has chosen to establish programs of scientific research based on their scholarly promise and capacity to serve the common good, and must continue to support such programs even if the federal government cuts their funding for politically-motivated reasons. We ask that the university publicly commit to providing stopgap funding for federally-funded grants that may be blocked, frozen, cut, or canceled by the Trump administration, especially in instances where we—faculty, staff, contractors, and/or students—will not be paid.
Georgetown University has a proven and admirable commitment to engaging globally and seeking a community reflecting the full range of human experiences. With these priorities in mind, the university has chosen to admit students and hire instructors and researchers based on merit whom the federal government has now targeted for retribution, criminalization, or deportation, based on ideological criteria of no appropriate concern to the university. Although we recognize that the university must comply with all court orders, the university has no obligation to provide information or other assistance to immigration authorities that is not legally mandated. We ask that the university publicly confirm that it will not cooperate with immigration authorities or with requests for information about students, faculty, and staff that are not strictly required by law in an effort to keep our community whole. We also ask that the university take immediate steps to protect visiting students and researchers, and all members of our community, including providing legal support and anti-doxxing assistance to faculty, students, and staff impacted.
Georgetown University is committed to freedom of speech and to sustained discourse among people. As Dean Treanor wrote in his response to the interim US Attorney for Washington, D.C., this sustained discourse is “a moral and educational imperative.” In line with this commitment, the university may not comply with federal pressure to designate certain political ideologies as inherently discriminatory. We ask the university to publicly commit that it will continue to reject any efforts to equate political disagreement with religious, racial, or national discrimination, and that it will also not share the names or contact information of students, staff, or faculty based on their perceived or actual political opinions or affiliations. Likewise, we ask that Georgetown commit to refuse all pressure to disinvest from or otherwise disavow or stigmatize particular units within the university that have become political targets in any way.
We recognize that to meet these obligations will not be easy, and we stand ready as a community to work with you, and to defend our institution when it defends us, by all the means it has at its disposal.
Titles are for identification purposes only.
Signed,
Greg Afinogenov, Associate Professor, Department of History
Bradley Gorski, Assistant Professor, Department of Slavic Languages
Manu Chander, Associate Professor, English
Jennifer Natalya Fink, Professor, English and Disability Studies
Heather Steffen, Adjunct Professor, Engaged and Public Humanities
Marwa Daoudy, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Service
Cóilín Parsons, Associate Professor, English
Amanda Phillips, Associate Professor, English
Casey Bieda, Adjunct Professor of Writing, English
Mustafa Aksakal, Associate Professor, SFS / History
J Palmeri, Professor of English, English
Peggy Kyoungwon Lee, Assistant Professor, English
Christopher Doyle, Program Administrator, English
Elizabeth Catchmark, Assistant Teaching Professor, English
Nicole Rizzuto, Associate Professor, English
Nathan K. Hensley, Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies, English
Mariana Gomez, Instructor, Department of Philosophy
Matthew Koshak, Instructor, Philosophy
James Mattingly, Professor, Philosophy
Toshihiro Higuchi, Associate Professor of History, School of Foreign Service
Alex Raycroft, Instructor, Philosophy
Nefertiti Takla, Assistant Professor, History
Kendall Bryant, Research and Program Associate, Red House
Mark McMorris, Professor, Dept of English
Molly Borowitz, Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
John Greco, Professor, Philosophy
Dominick Cooper, Graduate Teaching Assistant, Philosophy
Lori Merish, Professor, English
Crystal Luo, Assistant Professor of History, History / American Studies
Mariam Taher, Postdoctoral Fellow, SFS
Seth Perlow, Associate Professor, Department of English
Monica Maxwell, Assistant Professor, English Department Writing Program
Ellen Gorman, Adjunct Lecturer, English
Maureen Corrigan, Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism, English
Erin Twohig, Associate Professor, French and Francophone Studies
Sarah McNamer, Professor of English and Medieval Studies, Department of English
Christine So, Associate Professor, English
Aia Yousef, Adjunct Lecturer, English Department
Bohumira Smidakova, Teaching Assistant Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Joel Michael Reynolds, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies, Philosophy
Daniel Shore, Professor and Chair, Department of English
Michael Sciacca, Instructor of Record, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Caetlin Benson-Allott, Professor, English / Film & Media Studies
Quill Kukla, Professor, Philosophy
Joseph A. McCartin, Professor, Department of History
Maurice Jackson, Associate Professor, History
Brian Hochman, Hubert J. Cloke Director of American Studies, English / American Studies
Aviel Roshwald, Professor, History
Ly Xinzhen Zhangsun Brown, Assistant Teaching Professor, Disability Studies
Libbie Rifkin, Teaching Professor, English and Disability Studies
M. Lindsay Kaplan, Professor, English
Margaret Little, Professor, Philosophy Department and Kennedy Institute of Ethics
Lucy Zipf, Assistant Teaching Professor, SFS and Earth Commons
Elizabeth Velez, Adjunct, English
Chandra Manning, Professor, History
Sydney Luken, Assistant Professor, Ethics Lab
Alisa Carse, Associate Professor, Philosophy
Denise Brennan, Professor, Department of Anthropology
Will Fleisher, Assistant Professor, Philosophy
April Sizemore-Barber, Associate Professor of the Practice, Women’s and Gender Studies
Amani Morrison, Assistant Professor, English Department
Judith Tucker, Professor Emerita, History
Jamillah Bowman Williams, Professor of Law; Faculty Director, Georgetown Workers’ Rights Institute, Law School
Laurie King, Professor of Teaching, Anthropology
Vanessa Watters Opalo, Assistant Professor, SFS / Anthropology
Dayo F. Gore, Associate Professor, Black Studies
Anne Thinglum, Associate Teaching Professor of Spanish, Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Alejandro Yarza, Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Maria Moreno, Teaching Professor, Spanish and Portuguese
Shweta Bansal, Professor, Biology
Lois Wessel, Associate Professor, School of Nursing/School of Medicine
Toby Long, Professor, Disability Studies
Rebecca Boylan, Lecturer, Department of English
Julien Spurling, Instructor, Philosophy
Ananya Chakravarti, Associate Professor and Sonneborn Chair, History
Elizabeth Cross, Associate Professor, Department of History
Fida Adely, Associate Professor, SFS
Noureddine Jebnoun, Adjunct Professor, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Theodora Danylevich, Adjunct Professor, Writing, Disability Studies, Women's and Gender Studies, Medical Humanities
Lahra Smith, Associate Professor, African Studies (SFS) and Dept of Government
David Lipscomb, Teaching Professor, English / Writing Program
Joan Mandell, Adjunct Faculty, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies; SFS/CULP
C. Christine Fair, Professor of Security Studies, Security Studies
Nader Hashemi, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Service
Elliott Colla, Associate Professor, Arabic and Islamic Studies
Howard R. Spendelow, Associate Professor of History, Emeritus, Department of History
Irina Denischenko, Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages & Women's and Gender Studies Program
Suzanne Stetkevych, Sultan Qaboos Professor, Emerita, Arabic & Islamic Studies
Sarah Kureshi, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Education, Family Medicine
Rochelle Davis, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Service
Sam Halabi, Professor, Health Management and Policy
Kathleen E. Smith, Teaching Professor, School of Foreign Service
Nadia E. Brown, Professor and Director, Government & Women's and Gender Studies
Patrick R. O'Malley, Professor, English
Arjun Shankar, Assistant Professor, Culture and Politics
Vera Barton-Maxwell, Associate Professor and Program Director, Family Nurse Practitioner Program, School of Nursing
Sylvia Önder, Teaching Faculty, Turkish and Anthropology
Gabrielle Rejouis, Adjunct Professor, Communication, Culture and Technology
David Lindeman, Assistant Teaching Professor, Department of Philosophy
Sylvie Durmelat, Associate Professor, French and Francophone Studies
Mimi Kirk, Associate Director, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Sherry Linkon, Professor, English
Bryan McCann, Professor, History
Amy Leonard, Associate Professor, History
Brishen Rogers, Professor of Law, Law Center
James Millward, Professor, School of Foreign Service / History
Aisha Saad, Associate Professor, Law Center
Allegra McLeod, Professor of Law, Law Center
Sherally Munshi, Professor of Law, Law
Jane Komori, Assistant Professor, School of Foreign Service
Anupama Connor, Associate Professor of Law, Legal Practice, Law Center
Meredith McKittrick, Associate Professor, History
Mark C. Murphy, Department Chair, Philosophy, and McDevitt Professor of Religious Philosophy, Philosophy
Katherine Benton-Cohen, Professor, History
Julia Watts Belser, Professor of Jewish Studies & Disability Studies, Department of Theology and Religious Studies & Disability Studies Program
Osama Abi-Mershed, Associate Professor, History
Gregg Bloche, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Health Law, Policy, & Ethics, Georgetown Law
Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law, Law Center
Alison Games, Dorothy M. Brown Distinguished Professor of History, History
Tanina Rostain, Professor, Law
Mireya Loza, Associate Professor, History
Van Tran Nguyen, Assistant Professor of Performing Arts, TPST / College of Arts and Sciences
Josh Ruebner, Adjunct Lecturer, Justice and Peace Studies
Kelsey Moore, Assistant Professor of African American History and Black Studies, History and Black Studies
Niles Tomlinson, Adjunct Professor, English
Sean Aas, Associate Professor and Senior Research Scholar, Philosophy and Kennedy Institute of Ethics
Norman Francis, Jr., Assistant Director, Office of Undergraduate Admissions
Abbe Smith, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law, Law Center
Karen Stohr, Ryan Family Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, Department of Philosophy
John Tutino, Professor of History and International Affairs, History/SFS
Erick D. Langer, Professor, History/SFS
Michael Kazin, Professor, History
Phil Sandick, Associate Teaching Professor, English/Writing
John McNeill, Professor, History/SFS
Mara Evans, Assistant Professor, Certified Nurse Midwife, School of Nursing, Nurse Midwifery and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner Program
Llezlie Green, Professor of Law, Law Center
Gina Wimp, Professor, Biology
John Kraemer, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Health Management
Jack Davies, Postdoctoral Fellow, SFS
Allison Goldman, Instructor, Spanish and Portuguese
Jeff Jacobs, Assistant Teaching Professor, Data Science and Analytics
Nicole Gerber, Chief Administrative Officer, History
Jay Hammond, Associate Professor of Practice, Performing Arts
Maria Maisto, Communications Director, Emergent Ethics Network
Eli McCarthy, Professor, Theology and Religious Studies/Justice and Peace Studies
Safoura Nourbakhsh, Adjunct Lecturer, Women's and Gender Studies
Emerald Christopher, Adjunct Professor, Women's and Gender Studies & School of Continuing Studies
Julia Cunningham, Adjunct Professor, Women and Gender Studies
S Krupar, Professor, School of Foreign Service
Jennifer Bouey, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Global Health
LaMonda Horton-Stallings, Professor, Black Studies
Micah Sherr, Professor, Computer Science
Matthew Kavanagh, Director of Center for Global Health Policy & Politics and Assistant Professor, Global Health
Kimberly MacVaugh, SFS & Government Librarian, Georgetown University Library
Anne O'Neil-Henry, Associate Professor, French and Francophone Studies
Jeffrey Anderson, Professor, Walsh School of Foreign Service
Maya E Roth, Professor and TPST Program Director, Department of Performing Arts
Tariq Omar Ali, Associate Professor, School of Foreign Service
Adam Rothman, Professor, History
Brian McCabe, Associate Professor, Sociology
Shiva Subbaraman, Faculty, DPA & CNDLS
Leticia Bode, Professor, Communication, Culture, and Technology
Rosemary Ndubuizu, Assistant Professor, Black Studies
Christine Evans, Professor of Performing Arts, Department of Performing Arts
Kwame Otu, Associate Professor, SFS-African Studies
Carol A. Benedict, Emerita Professor, School of Foreign Service
Tim Bartley, Professor, Earth Commons and Department of Sociology
Kate Al-Shamma, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Performing Arts
Jonathan Brown, Professor, SFS
Corey Fields, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology
Christina Marea, Assistant Professor, School of Nursing
Killian Clarke, Assistant Professor, SFS
Benjamin J. Harbert, Professor, Performing Arts
Johann Le Guelte, Assistant Professor of Francophone Studies, Department of French and Francophone studies
Miléna Santoro, Associate Professor, French and Francophone Studies
Matthew Tinkcom, Professor, Communication, Culture and Technology
Jennifer Boum Make, Assistant Professor, French and Francophone Studies
Ricardo Ortiz, Professor, English
Mike Amezcua, Associate Professor, Department of History
Jo Ann H. Moran Cruz, Professor, Department of History
Emily Francomano, Professor; Director, Global and Comparative Literature, Spanish and Portuguese; Global and Comparative Literature
Lioudmila Fedorova, Professor and Chair, Department of Slavic Languages
Yuki Kato, Associate Professor, Sociology
Jessica Roda, Assistant Professor, School of Foreign Service
Katrin Sieg, Professor of German and European Studies, SFS
J.R. Osborn, Associate Professor, Communication, Culture & Technology
Mark Lance, Professor Emeritus, Philosophy
Joshua Cherniss, Associate Professor, Government
Kathleen R. McNamara, Professor of Government & Foreign Service, Government/SFS
Kristen Looney, Associate Professor, Asian Studies
Lisa Strong, Director, Art and Museum Studies MA Program, ARTH
Bill Rebeck, Professor, Neuroscience
Kerry Danner, Lecturer, Department of Theology & Religious Studies
Erika Seamon, Teaching Professor, American Studies Program
Francesco Ciabattoni, Professor, Italian
Fulvia Musti, Associate Teaching Professor, Italian
Brienne Adams, Assistant Professor, Black Studies
Em Aufuldish, Department and Graduate Program Coordinator, Art & Art History
Cecilia Van Hollen, Teaching Professor, School of Foreign Service
Roxie France-Nuriddin, Reference and Program Specialist, Bioethics Research Library
David G. Miller, Associate Director, Clinical Bioethics
Theodore Mallison, Digital Services Specialist, University Libraries
Laura Moy, Associate Professor, Law