[Lasa] Maria Paola Romo letter updates

[Julie Gamble]

December 2, 2021

Dear Ecuadorian LASA listserv members,

We hope this email finds you well as the semester starts to wrap up. We
wanted to reach out and thank you all for your solidarity.

We write to you today to share some exciting news.The University of
Pennsylvania’s student newspaper has successfully published our letter
as a guest
column
<https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/12/upenn-maria-paula-romo-ecuador-protest-visiting-scholar>
in today’s edition of the Daily Pennsylvanian. In addition, the DP followed
up with a staff article
<https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/12/penn-clals-maria-paula-romo-ecuador-human-rights-abuses>
highlighting María Paula Romo’s position at CLALS. These two columns could
not have been published without your collective support. We thank you again.

So, what is next? We hope that the University takes our guest column and
demands seriously through a response.

In the meantime, we have thought about next possible actions. We hope to
put additional pressure on the administration. In doing so, we thought one
strategy could be to send to different key members of the Penn community a
follow up email in light of the publication of the articles. If you have
time and are willing, we offer a draft letter and key emails of the Penn
community below. Also, if you know more people within the Penn community,
it would be fantastic if you would consider reaching out and asking others
to write to the administration to express your concerns.

Please let us know if you have any questions. We thank you again for your
time as we know demands are plentiful these days.

In solidarity,

Julie and Nicholas

_________________________________________________________________________

Key Institutional Email addresses:

Provost: provost at upenn.edu

Vice Provost for Global Initiatives: vp-global at upenn.edu

Professor Tulia Falleti, Director of CLALS: falleti at sas.upenn.edu

Professor Ann Farnsworth Alvear, Previous Director of CLALS:
farnswor at sas.upenn.edu

Global Affairs Institute, Perry World House:horom at sas.upenn.edu

Student Groups/Associations:

Silvia Ayala, Co-chair of Undergraduate Student Advisory Board:
rayala at sas.upenn.edu

Nikole Bonillas, Co-chair of Undergraduate Student Advisory Board:
nikoleb at sas.upenn.edu

La Casa Latina: vpul-lacasa at pobox.upenn.edu

The Andean Representation: mogle at sas.upenn.edu

Mujeres Empoderadas: MEatPenn at gmail.com

La Vida Magazine: lavidaupenn at gmail.com

La Unidad Latina: lul.devastatingdelta at gmail.com

Lambda Theta Alpha: betaepsilonLTA at gmail.com

Email subject: Maria Paola Romo at Penn

Dear XXX,

I write in reference to the guest column
<https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/12/upenn-maria-paula-romo-ecuador-protest-visiting-scholar>
and staff article
<https://www.thedp.com/article/2021/12/penn-clals-maria-paula-romo-ecuador-human-rights-abuses>
published in the Daily Pennsylvanian today about the visiting scholar
appointment of Ecuador’s former Minister of Government, María Paola Romo.

I am dismayed by the fact that a known human rights offender is at Penn.
Given Ms. Romo has been at Penn this entire Fall 21 semester, it is
disturbing that her position has just now come to light. It is also
disappointing that there has not been more transparency about Ms. Romo’s
hiring. In solidarity with the guest column that came out in the DP today,
December 2, 2021, I would like to hear from the University with the
following:


   1.

   What is Penn’s policy for awarding Visiting Scholar positions to
   politicians? Many universities have policies against awarding such
   positions to any politicians, including those who have been convicted and
   destituted for crimes against humanity.
   2.

   Why has CLALS removed Ms. Romo’s web page while maintaining the
   appointment? All other Visiting Scholars have them, and events and
   appointments are publicized.
   3.

   Why is the CLALS Director not responding to a Change.org petition
   against the appointment with over 10,000 signers?


I believe it imperative that the University carefully address these three
propositions. The academic community has taken note of where Penn stands on
this issue and how it relates to the university’s current reputation and
responsibility for ongoing research on Latin America.

Sincerely,

XXXX
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