As members of the faculty of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, we express our outrage at the executive order issued by President Trump denying entry into the United States for the next 90 days to citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries: Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Although some aspects of the executive order were stayed Saturday night, the executive order has arbitrarily thrown the lives of innocent people around the globe into disarray, including some of our own students. As scholars of Religious Studies, we are well aware of the denial of entry into the United States to refugees fleeing persecution in the past and present, and are outraged that fellow human beings, refugees from Syria who are fleeing war and death, are not being welcomed here. The threat to our democratic culture is heightened by the fact that President Trump signed these executive orders on a day that is internationally recognized as Holocaust Memorial Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We are shocked by proposals of a future religious test for entry into the United States. Along with colleagues around the country we demand that the United States government end this outrageous and potentially anti-constitutional policy immediately.
Professors Aun Hasan Ali, Loriliai Biernacki, Sam Boyd, Brian Catlos, Holly Gayley, Sam Gill,Greg Johnson,
Terry Kleeman, Elias Sacks, David Shneer, and Deborah Whitehead
Statement from the American Academy of Religion on the U.S. Executive Order