Scientists boycott journals, conferences in protest of Trump travel ban

Thousands of scientists have pledged to boycott conferences and scientific journals in protest of President Trump’s executive order that temporarily bars citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States.

“We question the intellectual integrity of these spaces and the dialogues they are designed to encourage while Muslim colleagues are explicitly excluded from them,” the pledge says. 

The online pledge says it has more than 5,000 signatures. 

More than 20,000 scientists and academics have also signed a letter denouncing the ban.

{mosads}”Academics from many of the most prestigious universities across the United States, including many Nobel Laureates, Fields Medalists, Members of the National Academy of Sciences, and winners of John Bates Clark Medal have signed an open letter opposing President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order for a 90-day suspension of visas and other immigration benefits to all nationals of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen,” the letter reads.

“These academics denounce this Executive Order in the strongest possible terms and respectfully urge President Trump to reconsider his stance to be more consistent with the longstanding values and principles of this country.”

A group of cybersecurity researchers has also refused to help law enforcement agencies and reconsidered conferences after the ban.

Tech conferences have been similarly impacted by Trump’s travel ban, in part because the order makes it difficult to gather international researchers into the same place. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), for example, is already reconsidering future American events.

Trump’s executive order suspends U.S. entry for 90 days for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. It also indefinitely halts the acceptance of refugees from Syria and blocks all refugees for 120 days.