RWU president responds to executive order on immigration

ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY President Donald J. Farish said the university feels "a special responsibility to declare our full support for all Roger Williams University faculty, students and staff – regardless of their religious beliefs, national origin or immigration status.” / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY
ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY President Donald J. Farish said the university feels "a special responsibility to declare our full support for all Roger Williams University faculty, students and staff – regardless of their religious beliefs, national origin or immigration status.” / COURTESY ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY

(Updated 7 p.m.)
BRISTOL – Donald J. Farish, Roger Williams University president, has responded to the presidential executive order on immigration, saying he is affirming the university’s “commitment to international and Muslim students, faculty and staff – as well as to their families.”

Farish, who released a statement Thursday, noted that the university’s namesake, the founder of Rhode Island, “helped enshrine freedom of religion as a bedrock principle for this nation.”

“We feel a special responsibility to declare our full support for all Roger Williams University faculty, students and staff – regardless of their religious beliefs, national origin or immigration status,” Farish said.

Farish said he has joined college and university presidents in signing a letter supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed 741,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to remain in the country, and another letter emphasizing the belief in “human decency, equal rights, freedom of expression and freedom from discrimination.”

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He added that RWU will not provide information on an individual’s religion, ethnicity or immigration status to anyone except as required by law.

On Wednesday morning, University of Rhode Island students, faculty and staff rallied in front of the Memorial Student Union in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 27 order.

According to information from URI, the event was a result of a grass-roots effort organized by students, faculty and staff opposed to the executive order and its implications.

WPRI-TV CBS-12 reported that URI President David M. Dooley was the first to be given the floor, and talked about the anxiety and uncertainty that he said afflicts “to a degree, all of us, but certainly some members of our community more than others. To acknowledge that, and position ourselves to be of whatever assistance we can be to those members of our community who feel threatened or just simply very uncertain about their future. The second thing is to acknowledge: we don’t know how this is going to evolve. … In times like this, it’s more important to stand up for what our core values are.”

Brown University Provost Richard M. Locke sent a message to the Brown community on Jan. 28 about the order, saying, “We are deeply troubled and concerned about this action and the detrimental impact it will have on our international students and scholars, our entire community, and our mission as a university.”

Brown President Christina H. Paxson joined 47 college and university presidents throughout the country in a letter sent to President Donald Trump Thursday urging him to “rectify the damage” done by the executive order on immigration.

“American higher education has benefited tremendously from this country’s long history of embracing immigrants from around the world. … America’s educational, scientific, economic, and artistic leadership depends upon our continued ability to attract the extraordinary people who for many generations have come to this country in search of freedom and a better life,” the letter said.

The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth released a statement on Jan. 28 after two faculty members were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Control officers at Logan International Airport in Boston upon their return from an academic conference in Paris. After three hours of detention, they were released

The statement, from Peyton R. Helm, interim chancellor, and Mohammad Karim, provost, read in part, “Now that our colleagues are safe, we want to be clear that we believe the executive order does nothing to make our country safer and represents a shameful ignorance of and indifference to the values that have traditionally made America a beacon of liberty and hope.”

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