This week, UWPD obtained credible information that groups from outside the UW community are planning to join the event with the intent to instigate violence. For the safety of campus visitors and others not associated with the events, several organizations have cancelled or postponed their campus events that day and access to Red Square will be limited. Your safety is important to us and we are taking precautions to ensure the Patriot Prayer event unfolds as peacefully as possible. However, I encourage you to avoid Red Square, and the surrounding area from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday to ensure your own personal safety.
Category: Presidential messages
Forging a bright future together
It was a year of peaks and valleys, the proverbial best of times and worst of times. But even at those moments of greatest uncertainty and fear, our community has risen to meet challenges with courage, ingenuity and empathy.
Committed to our DACA Dreamers
Today we learned that the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program will come to an end in six months unless there is legislative action to protect it. This decision could have extremely serious consequences for students on all three of our campuses who are an integral part of our community. I want to reassure every affected person that if DACA comes to an end, the University of Washington will do everything within its power to minimize the disruption to your lives and education.
Reflections on the tragedy of Charlottesville
This weekend was a difficult and painful one for all of us committed to a more equitable and inclusive society — to those of us who believe in justice and equity. There should be no question whatsoever that those white supremacists who marched across the University of Virginia campus and gathered across Charlottesville hold views that are anathema to our values, and that their actions were beneath contempt.
Community gathering space
Monday, Aug. 14
10 a.m.–noon
Mary Gates Hall,
Room 224
Resources for:
Bothell students
Seattle students
Tacoma students
Faculty & Staff
The pain, and yes anger, evoked by what happened is intensified for those of us who live, work or study on college campuses. It is no coincidence that they chose a campus for their march, for they know that universities are diverse, vibrant communities, which are striving to become even more inclusive and are committed to building a better world for all humanity.
My own reactions are impossible to fully describe, for they are very personal. The images of the Klan, Nazis and neo-Nazis brought me back to the horror of almost 40 years ago to another Saturday morning when people from these same groups murdered my own brother, Cesar, then 25. My heart aches at the loss of the young woman, Heather Heyer, who was killed and the two state police offers, H. Jay Cullen and Berke M.M. Bates, who died in the line of duty, as well as for their families and loved ones and the many who were injured. This will be with them forever and I can only hope that together with the pain, they find strength and inspiration.
I recall a late night conversation with my brother, in which he talked about “the struggle.” He did not view justice as an endpoint, or a goal with a clear finish line. Justice, he said, was a constant work-in-progress. You pushed the boulder up the hill, it would slide back, and you would have to push again. You needed to stay vigilant.
We are at a time in our country’s history where we must put our shoulder to that boulder, for it is sliding back down with a momentum many of us thought was impossible in this day and age. We must recommit to equity and inclusion — for all. But even in our grief and anger, it is important to remember the words of Martin Luther King, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
I do not have a road map forward, but I do know that we must find that way together. When our hearts are heavy, we find comfort in the collective embrace of community.
A message to alumni: Proud of our community of shared values
As we conclude another successful academic year, some 15,000 or so new graduates will go forth from the University of Washington and begin to carve their post-college paths. Among them are visionaries who dream of interplanetary travel and asteroid-mining, newly minted Ph.D.s with expertise in everything from classics to bioengineering, and Washington students who were the first in their families to enroll in college and will leave the UW with a diploma and untold opportunities. Each graduate’s story is unique and powerful.
Supporting our international scholars and students (updated)
The University of Washington is proud to be the home to students, staff and scholars from around the world. We stand with them and will provide them with support as needed. As Provost Baldasty and I emphasized to the community in November, we are fully committed to providing a safe, secure and welcoming environment that protects the privacy and human rights of all members of our community.
Standing together
No matter who you are, where you’re from, whom you love, where or whether you worship, or any other aspect of your identity, we welcome your contributions to helping the University of Washington maintain its commitment to access and excellence, to building a better and more equitable future, and creating a world of good.
Another vote of confidence in your work to change lives
The measure of the University of Washington’s true worth comes in the impact we have on the world. Your impact is broad, emerging through disciplines ranging from poetry to physics, and is truly global, with projects and partnerships in more than 130 countries – and right here in Washington.
Violence has no place at our University and no role in our democracy
I want to say very clearly: Violence has no place at our University and in our communities. It is heartbreaking that a man was shot and others assaulted during what should have been peaceful demonstrations. The gunshot victim is currently hospitalized, and we fervently hope for his full recovery.
Pursuing the ideals of a more perfect union
This week begins and ends with two important days in the civic life of our nation: Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day. In many ways, these two days represent two sides of the same coin. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we celebrate the life of a man who used advocacy, peaceful protest and civil disobedience to advance the cause of human rights. And on Inauguration Day, we mark the peaceful transition of power as determined by the votes cast in our electoral system.