We, the faculty of the Princeton University Department of African American Studies, stand in solidarity with our colleague Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, extraordinary scholar of race in America, and we condemn the violent threats and ongoing harassment leveled against her.
 
We reject any effort to silence Professor Taylor or the principled intellectual tradition she represents. We share her unwavering commitment to speak and write truthfully about the state of the nation and the failures of its political leaders to act in the service of justice, equality, and the betterment of our common humanity.
 
On May 20, 2017, Professor Taylor delivered the commencement address at Hampshire College, which was video-taped and distributed. In it, she spoke movingly about the necessity of historical inquiry, the struggle for justice, the importance of solidarity, and the urgency of hope.
 
Fox News subsequently targeted Professor Taylor in print and on television on May 28, focusing on an opening remark of hers that President Trump, "a racist and sexist megalomaniac," was the biggest threat to the students’ futures. Fox succeeded in inciting Trump followers, who have attacked her with racist, sexist, and homophobic speech and vicious death threats. Those targeting Professor Taylor have called for Princeton to fire her.
 
We denounce these acts of racial, gender, and sexual violence and the efforts to intimidate and harass Professor Taylor. Her ideas deserve the widest possible audience, free from threat or intimidation.
 
Professor Taylor, the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and the book in progress Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s, is a brilliant and innovative scholar of inequality, segregation, and American public policy. Her meticulous, award-winning research on the history and politics of Black America is a model and Professor Taylor has earned the widespread respect of both her peers and her students for her painstaking scholarship, passionate teaching, and advocacy for a better world rooted in both. We support her whole-heartedly.
 
Princeton University Department of African American Studies Faculty and Staff
Prof. Eddie Glaude, Chair
Prof. Imani Perry
Prof. Ruha Benjamin
Prof. Naomi Murakawa
Prof. Wallace Best
Prof. Tera Hunter
Prof. Chika O. Okeke-Agulu
Prof. Stacey A. Sinclair
Prof. Joshua Guild
Prof. Wendy Laura Belcher
Prof. Anna Arabindan Kesson
Prof. Kinohi Nishikawa
Ms. April Peters
Ms. Dionne Worthy
Mr. Elio Lleo
Allison Bland


6,577 members of the broader community have also signed this letter in support of Professor Taylor (by 10:30 pm June 5).
People from all over the world have signed: Canada and the UK, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland, Greece, Germany, Italy, Serbia, France, Spain, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Korea, Singapore, China, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and others.

To see those signatures, please go to http://aas.princeton.edu/blog/news/taylorsolidarity/. More signatures will be added there every few hours; please be patient.)

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