An Open Letter from UNT Faculty on Donald Trump Jr. and the Kuehne Speaker Series We the undersigned UNT faculty write to profess our profound shock, dismay, and embarrassment that the university we are so proud to serve would stoop to invite Donald Trump Jr. to speak in North Texas under UNT’s auspices. This invitation evinces a stunning disrespect for women, people of color, LGBTQ members of our community, and others, and it cannot stand. We call on the UNT Board of Regents to rescind UNT’s invitation to Mr. Trump and to suspend the Kuehne Speaker Series until UNT administrators can devise a shared-governance process that will bring more of UNT's stakeholders--including UNT administrators, faculty, staff, and students--together to select speakers. This would allow our university's premier speaker series to meet the stated goal that it is not currently meeting: to bring to North Texas men and women who have expertise to share on topics of national and global relevance. Mr. Trump has not had life experiences that rise to this level; he was born wealthy and hired by his father to work for a family business. He certainly has not expressed ideas that rise to this level, except as negative examples of bigotry and anti-intellectualism. His only nationally relevant actions have served to embolden the “alt-right” on our campus and beyond via social media, and his misbegotten foray into global affairs is currently under investigation by a special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice. That anyone associated with our university would choose to associate with Mr. Trump shows distressingly poor judgment. We understand that Ernie Kuehne and Brint Ryan are free to spend their money as they wish and sincerely appreciate that they would fund this series. We want it to become an institution of which our entire university can be proud. We simply believe that UNT's premier speaker series deserves a deliberative process that brings speakers to our community who share UNT's core values. These values include Access, Accountability, Collaboration, Diversity, Engagement, Excellence, Service, and Sustainability. Having followed his progress or lack thereof, we must award Mr. Trump an Incomplete or failing grade in each of these subjects. We therefore call on all UNT entities that have supported the Kuehne Speaker Series in the past to suspend that support for 2017-18. In response to our concerns a UNT spokesperson claims, “As a public university that supports the expression of differing points of view as part of the learning process, the University of North Texas welcomes speakers who represent all viewpoints, including conservative, liberal and progressive political ideology as well as all positions in between.” In fact, in its history the Kuehne Series has featured no such range of opinions, yet we have not seen fit to express our concerns until now. We raise our voices today because we consider Mr. Trump’s words and actions far beyond the bounds of reasonable, respectful discourse upon which the work of our learning community depends. We embrace the free exchange of ideas and seek them out from all directions, but we cannot accept the outrageous decision-making that would result in inviting (much less paying!) anyone who offers so little of intellectual, cultural, or moral value to our community. We ask the people of North Texas to understand that this invitation does not represent our
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