To President Satish Tripathi, Provost Scott Weber, Dean of Student Life Ann Bisantz, and Dean of Graduate School Graham Hamill:
Recent campus visits by transphobic speakers Michael Knowles and Riley Gaines have, as predicted, been harmful to our UB community. A recent rise in anti-trans violence across the United States has been well-documented, and we have heard from UB students who have been called transphobic and homophobic slurs in days following the events. Calls to ban transgender athletes based on their identity or “eradicate transgenderism entirely” directly support anti-trans hatred on our campus and compromise the safety and well-being of our transgender and nonbinary students, staff, and faculty. But we also know that individual speakers are symptoms of a bigger problem. The recent wave of anti-trans legislation across the United States has sought to legally erase transgender and nonbinary people from public life. As has been made obvious in recent reports, this is not an effort by good-faith actors to protect children from harm or ensure equity for women, as some claim - it is a coordinated, targeted political attack on a marginalized group to further an agenda that uses biological sex to justify the denial of bodily autonomy and privacy. Furthermore, our federal government refuses to lend its full support to transgender people amidst this attack; President Biden’s recent proposed rule for Title IX, posed as a “progressive” change, explicitly states that it supports schools in “limit[ing] transgender students’ participation.” We refuse to stay silent while our legislators and UB administrators lend little more than empty lip service to ourselves, our friends and our families in the face of open bigotry and hatred. We demand better. As a SUNY flagship university in a state yet untouched by anti-trans legislation, leaders at the University at Buffalo have a unique opportunity and obligation to stand up for its LGBTQ+ community and unequivocally affirm the rights of minoritized populations to exist and thrive in higher education.
The signatories of this petition demand that the university
Dedicate funding to the creation of a campus LGBTQ+ Center with at least one full-time staff member.
Provide regular semesterly campus-wide updates on the progress of the Working Group for Transgender Inclusion.
Ensure that all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at UB take an intersectional approach to addressing racism, homophobia, sexism, queerphobia, and ableism.
Actively recruit transgender speakers and their allies for university-sponsored events and provide financial compensation for their work.
Respond to the demands herein via a public letter from the President’s office addressing the rise of university censorship, attacks on DEI initiatives, and anti-trans violence across the nation by the end of the spring semester. This letter should also serve as an update on the specific actions listed above.
Students, faculty, staff, and other members of the UB community are invited to submit additional comments here.
