Dear All,

The (American) scientific community is in a state of crisis-- the magnitude of which is difficult to overstate. Many of our friends and colleagues are facing the most dire of situations, and they require the support and activism of the entirety of academia in this moment.

In what may be a controversial gesture, I am breaking with the strict "on-topic" tradition of this subreddit to address the situation-- I truly hope that the other moderators with sympathize with, if not support this action.

It is my opinion[1] that recent events concerning American politics have come to surface as, among other things, serious bipartisan Scientific and Humanitarian issues, and that the fate of science, and more importantly our scientists, is inextricably intertwined with the course of these policies. Because of this, as a scientist and a member of this community, I feel that it is appropriate to take advantage of my cross-section with scientific readers to broadcast the following message:

[1] which is carefully defended below in a citation laden, fact-based message written by multiple active researchers of varying beliefs and backgrounds

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As many of you know, the current administration issued an executive order titled “Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States” on January 27. The full text of the order with annotation is available here

In summary, the following restrictions are in place as of writing:

• Citizens of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia are barred from entering the United States on any visa category
• Any refugees awaiting resettlement in the United States are barred from entering for 120 days
• All Syrian refugees are barred from entry to the United States indefinitely

Initially, the status of permanent residents of the United States, also known as “green card” holders, was in question, leading to the detention of over 100 permanent residents upon re-entering the country. On February 1, the current administration announced that the executive order will no longer apply to legal permanent residents. Additionally, Acting Attorney General Sally Yates stated on January 30 that she would not defend the legality of the order, prompting the administration to relieve Ms. Yates of her duties. To build on this misfortune, it has come to light that the current administration wishes to expand on these bans in the (near) future.

This order has already impacted the scientific community domestically and abroad in various ways, making it clear that this issue transcends partisan ideology and poses a direct threat to the success of future scientific endeavors. For a sample of the current effects and potential future ramifications, consider the following:

• Scientists at American institutions with dual or foreign citizenship in the impacted countries remain unsure if they will be able to re-enter the country (stories at Nature and Science are here and here)

• Researchers hoping to immigrate and become American citizens in order to pursue scientific interests face uncertain futures, potentially reducing the nation’s talent pool(story at Scientific American here)

• Academics across the country are calling for a boycott of American scientific conferences and journals (story at the Chronicle of Higher Education here)

In response to this action, members of the scientific community have outlined a course of action to safeguard the future of science in America. Over 9,000 U.S. faculty members and 44 Nobel Laureates have penned an open letter voicing their concerns regarding the executive order.

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What is being asked of you:

As members of this Scientific Community-- both scientists, and enthusiasts; both intelligent and compassionate-- we ask that:

• All Students, Faculty and Scientists please consider joining them in solidary by signing their petition letter at https://notoimmigrationban.com/ as well as forwarding the petition to your colleagues and/or academic advisors.

• In addition, please make your concerns heard by contacting your United States Representative and Senators – information may be found either here or by a simple search for your legislators which will turn up results for their e-mail addresses, office phone numbers, and social media profiles. Each of these modes are an effective means of ensuring that your legislator is aware of your concerns, as many members of Congress make a point to be quite responsive to queries submitted in a variety of forms. Repeated contact is preferable, as it demonstrates that these concerns will not diminish until corrective action is taken.

• Please contact the moderators of other science and academic groups (both subbreddits and non-reddit communities alike) and request that they make similar posts in solidarity, and perhaps leave them up through this Sunday.

• Gather amongst yourselves to form a well-informed, high-impact, Scientific Activism community, on reddit or otherwise, in an effort to save our community and the impacted individuals who make it up.

Our Immigrants make Science Great. Thank you for time and contribution!

For more information regarding the executive order and stories about its impacts, check out the following:

The Atlantic, Reuters, NYT, PRI

On behalf of my friends and colleagues,

quaz4r

Infinite thanks to JM for skillfully writing the most important parts of this message

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To be clear, posts of political or off-topic nature are still not permitted in this subreddit with the exception of well-tempered, bipartisan, constructive discussion within this thread.

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Edit: 2/2/2017. There seems to be some push back here about this issue being a scientific issue, which is a central theme of this post, so I would like to expand on the previous arguments. Besides the immediate, tangible impact on science, scientists, and their collaborations already noted in the citation laden message above, there is a growing body of evidence that diversity in-and-of itself improves scientific endevours (as well as a long historical fossil record of community size v.s. progress). See the following articles Nature, Scientific American, NPR. Therefore, to the best of our knowledge as scientists, we find that diversity and international collaboration are positively correlated with output and impact, with an exception for the most fringe cases. The events written about in this post have already affected this in widespread, detrimental ways, both directly and indirectly as noted above. We then conclude that this issue is a scientific issue and not a matter of opinion or politics, until proven otherwise in a reputable and controlled study .