哥伦比亚大学的师生员工们：
特朗普总统发布行政命令禁止美国接纳叙利亚难民，并对来自七个穆斯林多数国家的所有移民和非移民实施90天禁令。这使得我们很多人对联邦政策的改变可能影响我们的社区的担心已经变为令人不安的现实。
总统的行政命令引发了激烈的公众争议和法律辩论。在许多强烈的请愿和引人注目的声明中，其中就有哥伦比亚大学作为成员之一的美国大学协会（AAU）的声明。我们与许多同行一道，公开谴责这一行政命令，因为它是歧视性的，破坏了美国在高等教育领域的领导地位，违背了我们的核心价值观和立国之本。
在实际层面上，我们建议来自政命令所涉及的国家的我们大学的员工和访问学者暂停国际旅行计划。我们尚不知道是否有目前在国外的这七个指定国家的哥伦比亚大学学生，教师或工作人员。我们敦促任何寻求进一步指导的人与我们的国际学生和学者办公室（ISSO）联系。
在更基本的层面上，这一行政命令背弃了国家对人民和思想交流保持开放的一贯承诺。我们不能低估其影响的程度。据估计，美国有17,000名国际学生来自入境禁令所涵盖的七个国家。计划前来美国参加在我们的大学举行会议的学者将被禁止出席。我们欢迎来自全国乃至世界各地的学生，教师和员工。而这个行政命令肯定会对我们的大学社区产生深远的影响。
正如我在很多场合所说，大学本身不介入意识形态或政治问题是极为重要的。然而，大学作为社会中的一个机构，当政策和国家行为与其基本价值观发生冲突时，尤其是当它们提出与我们的基本使命不符的意图和观念时，我们必须站出来。现在正是这样的时刻。
重要的是要提醒自己，除了令国家耻辱的那些事件，美国没有由于宗教或政治信仰原因而将世界其他地方的人排除在外。我们清楚地知道，对我们安全的威胁的普遍恐惧不能成为放弃我们的基本理念的理由。有许多强有力和不言而喻的理由令我们秉持这些核心价值观，其中之一是，歧视往往增加非常有害的偏见和敌意，并影响到我们自己的公民。
很遗憾我必须发出这一信息。
真诚的，
Lee C.Bollinger
January 29, 2017
http://news.columbia.edu/content/1559
Response to Executive Order on Refugee and Immigration Policy
January 29, 2017
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
With the executive order issued by President Trump barring admission to the United States of Syrian refugees and imposing a 90-day ban on all immigrant and nonimmigrant entry from seven Muslim-majority nations, the fear so many have had about federal policies being changed in ways that could affect our community has become disturbingly real.
The public controversy and legal debate over the President’s order is intense. Among the many strong petitions and compelling statements that have been issued is one from the Association of American Universities (AAU), of which Columbia is a member. We join with many peers in decrying this action as discriminatory, damaging to America’s leadership in higher education, and contrary to our nation’s core values and founding principles.
At a practical level, we are advising community members and visiting scholars from the designated countries to suspend plans for international travel. At the moment, we do not know of any Columbia students, faculty, or staff from the seven designated countries who are currently abroad. In the meantime, we urge anyone seeking further guidance to contact our International Students and Scholars Office (ISSO).
At a more fundamental level, this order undermines the nation’s continuing commitment to remain open to the exchange of people and ideas. We must not underestimate the scale of its impact. An estimated 17,000 international students in the U.S. are from the seven nations covered by the entry ban. Scholars planning to travel to the United States for meetings and conferences at our colleges and universities will effectively be barred from attending. If this order stands, there is the certainty of a profound impact on our University community, which is committed to welcoming students, faculty, and staff from around the world, as well as across the nation.
As I have said on many occasions, it is critically important that the University, as such, not take stands on ideological or political issues. Yet it is also true that the University, as an institution in the society, must step forward to object when policies and state action conflict with its fundamental values, and especially when they bespeak purposes and a mentality that are at odds with our basic mission. This is such a case.
It is important to remind ourselves that the United States has not, except in episodes of national shame, excluded individuals from elsewhere in the world because of their religious or political beliefs. We have learned that generalized fears of threats to our security do not justify exceptions to our founding ideals. There are many powerful and self-evident reasons not to abandon these core values, but among them is the fact that invidious discrimination often adds fuel to deeply harmful stereotypes and hostility affecting our own citizens.
It is with regret that I have to send this communication.
Sincerely,
Lee C. Bollinger
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