WE DEMAND AN IMMIGRANT-SAFE CAMPUS!
Ball State University Board of Trustees; Geoffrey Mearns, President of BSU
Over the past year Americans have witnessed their friends, neighbors, and families victimized and abused by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is a plague which has already ripped through Indiana universities, including Purdue University, where undergraduate student Yeonsoo Go was wrongly detained and stripped of her basic human rights earlier this year.
Muncie is not immune. There have already been reports of deportations in the Muncie community and ICE agents have been repeatedly sighted in our community.
Seeing that Ball State is a university known for its diversity and service to low-income students, it is necessary that our university takes a stand against ICE. There are over 300 international students on our campus who, regardless of their legal status as residents in the US, are subject to discrimination by ICE. These are our friends, classmates, and peers. How can we be an academic community of beneficence if, at any moment, our peers can be detained, abused, and deported by a modern Gestapo?
The Young Democratic Socialists of America at Ball State are thus demanding the following reforms:
1. That the university refuses to comply with any attempts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or any other governmental agency to deport and/or detain students, or with any attempts by those agencies to access immigrant students’ personal information unless a complete and relevant judicial warrant is provided.
2. That the university issues a statement reaffirming their allegiance to their immigrant students and declaring our campus to be an immigrant-safe campus; this statement will be issued through a press conference as well as a mass emailing to all students on campus.
3. That the university commits itself to protecting free speech for all students and faculty and releases a statement affirming that commitment; this statement will be issued through a press conference as well as a mass emailing to all students on campus.
4. That the university will not comply with the DHS or ICE officials in the event they request student information or access to campus unless provided with a complete and relevant judicial warrant.
5. That the university will provide mandatory non-compliance training to all public-facing university employees.
Petition by
To:
Ball State University Board of Trustees; Geoffrey Mearns, President of BSU
From:
[Your Name]
We, the people, demand that this university take a stand against the authoritarian measures taken by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In our march for a beneficent community, we demand the following reforms immediately, for the safety of all students and faculty on our campus:
1. That the university refuses to comply with any attempts by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or any other governmental agency to deport and/or detain students, or with any attempts by those agencies to access immigrant students’ personal information unless a complete and relevant judicial warrant is provided.
2. That the university issues a statement reaffirming their allegiance to their immigrant students and declaring our campus to be an immigrant-safe campus; this statement will be issued through a press conference as well as a mass emailing to all students on campus.
3. That the university commits itself to protecting free speech for all students and faculty and releases a statement affirming that commitment; this statement will be issued through a press conference as well as a mass emailing to all students on campus.
4. That the university will not comply with the DHS or ICE officials in the event they request student information or access to campus unless provided with a complete and relevant judicial warrant.
5. That the university will provide mandatory non-compliance training to all public-facing university employees.
Ball State is a university which prides itself on beneficence. In perfect agreement with that credo, we demand that beneficent defense is extended to the most vulnerable in our community. Ball State ought not to be the feudal fiefdom of un-elected bureaucrats, but a community of academic excellence built on an ethos of mutual respect for all persons. To achieve this, this university must take a stand against ICE.