Petition to retain Dr. Li-Ann Thio as NYU Visiting Professor

We, the undersigned, express our sincere preference that New York University School of Law retain Dr. Li-Ann Thio as a Global Professor in the Hauser Global Law School Program.

We wish to underscore that we do not profess a unitary belief on the sentiments regarding homosexuality, or the decriminalization thereof, Dr. Thio expressed as a Nominated Member of Singapores Parliament. Neither do we embrace or reject Dr. Thios support of the imposition of a $15,000 fine on a Singaporean television station for presenting a gay couple and their child as a family. No; we, the undersigned, do not speak with one voice regarding Dr. Thios views or actions.

We, the undersigned, however, do speak with one voice when we emphatically remind the New York University School of Law community, and its academic peers, that academic and intellectual freedom are foundational educational values. The robust and open debate that powers the marketplace of ideas and nourishes our intellectual vitality withers in an environment of enforced silence. So, too, is the light of New York University School of Laws intellectual community dimmed when that community bends to institutional pressure to squelch the opinions of those who, despite distinguished academic records, dare to disagree with the status quo.

There are troubling similarities between Dr. Thios current situation and that of Ward Churchills. We therefore think it appropriate to close with an excerpt from An Open Letter from Concerned Academics to the Board of Regents at the University of Colorado:

[T]he attempt, escalated by government authority, to fire Ward Churchill . . . amount[s] to a serious assault on dissent, critical inquiry, and academic freedom, and a heightening of the repressive atmosphere in American society overall. This attack is intolerable and must stop now. The precedents already set in this case - that a professor can be publicly pilloried and threatened with dismissal for what he writes - must not be allowed to stand.

We, the undersigned, hope for a better resolution.