UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA Office of the President

February 16, 2018

202 Morrill Hall JOO Church Street S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455 Office: 612-626-1616 Fax: 612-625-3875

Dear Professor Frey and other signatories: We write in response to your recent letter, developed in partnership with the Minnesota Student Association, about the looming uncertainties related to theDeferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and theTemporary Protected Status (TPS) designation. Your letter underscores the profound implications for our campus community that will result from termination of these programs ( if there is no Congressional or judicial intervention) and also highlights the deleterious effects of ongoing travel restrictions. As we wrote last fall, the potential deportation of young people previously promised protection underDACA is an unconscionable possibility. Our students who enrolled inDACA-and those provided protection under TPS-are valued members of our campus community. Your letter conveying faculty commitment to students who would be directly affected by pending policy changes signals a broad University commitment reflective of our institutional mission and values. We are identifying steps that can and should be taken to assist students whose educational success and degree completion may be imperiled by deportation or an inability to travel. (The rescission ofDACA, should it become final, will not directly affect the Minnesota Dream Act, which provides in-state tuition and financial aid eligibility for noncitizen residents. This state law was adopted by the Board of Regents as the official policy for the University of Minnesota system. It will not, however, protect students from deportation ifDACA ends.) We will continue to insist that our faculty have academic discretion, freedom, and a responsibility to support student success and assist students in the successful completion of their degrees. Faculty can take into account individual circumstances and context, including the state of a student's progress toward degree, a given course's adaptability to distance education or individualized study, and so on. We are also pursuing the necessary governance and administrative consultations needed to amend policies that would hinder flexibility in distance education options and degree completion support. We wish to mention again that the University has an active, prepared, and helpful Immigration Response Team and website, and we urge anyone who is or might be affected by changes in government policy to reach out to our IRT staff. We stand with ourDreamers, and our University will do all it can to ensure their wellbeing. We will continue to work with University administration, faculty and student governance, and the wider community, to support our students and to advocate at the state and national level, urging Congress to adopt bipartisan legislation to solve theDACA impasse. Thank you for your advocacy and support. Sincerely,

Eric Kaler President

Driven to DiscoversM

Karen Hanson Executive Vice President and Provost