UAlberta profs, academic association oppose travel ban

Christine Wiesenthal, a professor of English and Film Studies, won’t be attending American academic conferences this year. To solidify her stance, she’s signed a petition to boycott American conferences following the issue of the country’s travel ban.

President Donald Trump’s executive order, denying U.S. entry to citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries, was signed on January 27 — and can therefore prevent academics from attending conferences there. In solidarity with those academics, a boycott has been created and has more than 6,000 signatures.

Wiesenthal is one of more than 50 petition signatories in the University of Alberta’s professoriate. While she won’t be travelling south, she will be supporting her American colleagues by submitting her work to American journals.

“If Trump were to shut down the internet I’d be worried about isolationism in the States,” she said. “I think there are many ways to continue to participate in a conversation with American colleagues and to indicate our support of those scholars without having to travel there.

Another signatory, Ameeta Singh, is a clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and feels it wouldn’t be fair to attend meetings in the U.S. Normally, Singh attends conferences to the south at least once per year.

“If others don’t have the right to travel, then why should I?” she said.

Dr. Peter Silverstone, a psychiatry professor who signed on to the boycott, has boycotted conferences in other countries before because of their politics.

“To simply say science stands alone is naïve,” he said. “Sometimes we have to express our views and sadly the U.S. is really quite anti-science at this moment. I had no problem supporting avoiding going to conferences in the U.S.”

Dr. Silverstone attended the Anxiety and Depression conference in San Francisco in the past but won’t be there this year. Some of the largest international conferences are held in the U.S., and academics refusing to attend won’t be able to present their work at those meetings.

“(The boycott) is not something people do lightly and I think that should really be recognized, this is not a trivial matter and it has implications for us as individuals,” Dr. Silverstone said.

Besides individual professors making their own statements, the Association of Academic Staff at the University of Alberta has published a press release in solidarity with scholars affected by the travel ban, though a representative could not be reached for an additional comment.

“The Association deplores the negative impact of the Executive Order for research collaboration,” the release said. “Especially for international partnerships and research dissemination at academic conferences.”

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has also condemned the executive order in its own release.

While the ban is in place, and perhaps even for the duration of Trump’s time in office, Wiesenthal said she won’t be comfortable with travel to the south.

“As a Canadian citizen of European descent I would pass through (to the U.S.) without any problems,” she said. “There are colleagues from those banned countries who are denied that freedom of movement. The free exchange of ideas, that’s central to an academic’s work.”