I appreciate silence, often crave it even.
It is sometimes far easier to hear, assess and discern in silence.
The antidote to the incessant cacophony of noises that threaten to distract, diminish or deter us rests in silence.
Silence can even be the best response, the most judicious and effective response.
It is always an option.
Except when it shouldn’t be. Except when silence is not acceptable.
Like when the people you care for are under attack and fearful. Like when the entity or institution in your care is under siege. When it is threatened at its very core.
Like right now.
When silence is just not acceptable.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham, like many universities and colleges throughout the nation, is losing millions upon millions, thanks to the anti-anything-not-white-or-straight-male Trump administration. And the threat of losing more is causing the institution to capitulate, cower and genuflect — to abandon core principles, practices and programs.
All while Dr. Ray Watts, a neurologist who’s been UAB’s president since 2013, is silent. At least publicly.
Oh, we’ve heard from some UAB lieutenants and there’ve been university statements lamenting the impact of these and potential future cuts.
Watts? Silence.
Trump and his ilk have convinced themselves that “DEI” is the antithesis of what it actually is. They believe to their core that diversity doesn’t encompass them, equity is designed to hurt them, that inclusion doesn’t, well, include them.
So, they’re trying to eviscerate it from wherever it exists and threatening to destroy any institution or corporation that dares remain committed to the true tenets of DEI. Tenets that helped UAB earn the “Diversity Champion” designation from Insight into Academia for six consecutive years between 2018 and 2023.
Three years ago, Watts said he was “proud” of the recognition and acknowledged it as “a testament to the outstanding efforts of our Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” Which is, of course, now R.I.P. (though reincarnated as the Office of Access and Engagement; shhhh, don’t tell anyone.)
Lay that at the equally DEI-lusional hearts of Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama’s Republican lawmakers and their 2023 anti-whatever-they-think-DEI-is state law.
Now, the Trump administration is taking up the mantle and gutting America of America (forgetting, of course, that their ancestors were the first “illegals”).
And it’s costing UAB. A lot. Already, the institution has lost $24.5 million in grant funds that had been approved by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Among them:
$7.9 million for faculty recruitment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tuskegee University.
$1.2 million to recruit and support underrepresented groups for membership in the Society for the Advancement in Biology Education Research, a leading international society with a primary focus on undergraduate biology research.
$1.4 million to increase diversity in undergraduate biomedical research
$1 million for a summer program to train students at partnering HBCUs in genomic medicine and research.
Last week, UAB was among the several Birmingham institutions stunned by the cancellation of a groundbreaking $44 million federal biotechnology grant that would allowed them to use artificial intelligence to shorten drug development and provide affordable drugs, vaccines and diagnostics.