During the past year, a few members of the UAB community made public statements and postings that endorsed racism and/or white supremacy. Their attempts to gain support for these ideas on campus resulted in many students, faculty and staff feeling threatened and marginalized. As the elected representatives of our diverse faculty, the Faculty Senate voted unanimously to reaffirm our strong support for free speech and our condemnation of racism in all its forms, as expressed in the statement below.

We, the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, affirm that every voice, identity, experience and background in our community is paramount to our collective success.

As an academic institution, we appreciate and embrace free speech. However, we relentlessly champion the value of diversity in all of its forms. As a faculty, we fully contend that any speech that marginalizes members of our diverse community is inconsistent with UAB’s core values of diversity and inclusion.

Therefore, we reject all forms of racism, xenophobia, and sexism--as well as bigotry in all of its forms. We will not tolerate any such activities or communications in our classrooms, research and teaching laboratories, clinics and hospitals, or anywhere else on the UAB campus.

As faculty, we actively seek varied perspectives in our decision-making and treat others with courtesy and civility. These values embody the Blazer Spirit.