On DACA and Challenges to Our Values.
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With sadness and hope for the future, on to today’s Note.
电动汽车
Global progress moves, if haltingly, apace. We are all fundamentally global citizens; this can be felt particularly in a great international city like Boston, and even more so on the proudly global campus of Boston University. In his address at last week’s SPH Orientation, BU’s Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore called our community “cosmopolitan,” a word that means “familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures.” I agree that our school is indeed cosmopolitan, as is, in its best moments, the United States. It is incumbent upon us to continue aspiring to the ease of the true cosmopolitan, even as our world presents us with many shades of unfamiliarity and often disorienting change.
联合国
Why do I write a note on DACA and values, stepping outside my usual scope of writing on health? I feel compelled to write this for three reasons.
First, DACA and policies around immigration affect members of our community, and it falls to all of us to defend all members of our community from forces that threaten them, even if those forces seem at times to be our own government. We stand firmly with President Brown who has said clearly, “We will not provide information about students who are undocumented unless specifically compelled to do so by a warrant or subpoena, and we will provide advice and counsel on a case-by-case basis to students who self-identify as undocumented and come forward to seek our counsel.” Any concerned students should talk to our student services staff or engage with the University resources offered through Marsh Chapel, the Howard Thurman Center or to the ISSO team for confidential meetings. More information is at: /isso/undocumented-individuals.
Second, our values are the bedrock on which all our houses are built, and the current administration’s efforts to undermine those core values shake our institutions at this very foundation. I consider myself to be extraordinarily fortunate to be a member of the great academic enterprise that has made American universities the premier universities in the world over the past century. Fundamental challenges to the Enlightenment principles on which these universities are built are a threat to all of us, and it falls to us to stand up and say “no.”
Third, this too matters for the health of populations. In addition to the direct physical and psychological effects of marginalization and bigotry, and the threat of potential deportation for those directly affected, this administration’s slow disinvestment in public goods and in the social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape health, directly threaten the health of the entire American population. Beyond the direct effect these policies have on health is the tone they set. It is a tone of meanness, of disregard for the norms of respectful debate. This, too, matters for health. Incivility leads to hate; hate, if left unchecked, can lead to violence, as it did in Charlottesville. Even when we avoid this worst-case scenario, a culture of incivility still breeds a politics of exclusion, empowers the worst among us, and makes solutions increasingly hard to come by.
With this in mind, I turn, once again, to values. At this unique season in our history, it strikes me that we in public health can make a difference not just by working to improve the conditions of health, but by working, each day, to elevate the public debate, inspired by the same Enlightenment ideals that have always made our school and our country great. Reason, depth of analysis, clarity of thought and expression: These are the antipodes of bigotry and hate. Together, these values can create a context where we can shift culture, and ultimately policy, to create a healthier world.
Warm regards,
Sandro
Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor
Boston University School of Public Health
Twitter: @sandrogalea
Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Eric DelGizzo for his contributions to this Dean’s Note.
Previous Dean’s Notes are archived at: /sph/tag/deans-note/