More than 4,000 university professors, administrators and researchers have signed a petition to boycott international academic conferences in the U.S. to show solidarity with Muslim colleagues affected by U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

“It is a support to our (Muslim) colleagues in this beleaguered time,” said Haroon Akram-Lodhi, an economics and international development studies professor at Trent University in Peterborough, one of many Canadian academics on board.

“The reality is these international conferences are large money generators. They are important economic drivers. We don’t want to give the economic support to the U.S. in this situation.”

Another online petition denouncing the ban led by American academics has collected more than 18,000 signatures, including 50 Nobel Laureates.

A 2013 National Science Foundation report found 5.2 million of the 29 million scientists and engineers in the U.S. are immigrants.

The academic boycott was a response to Trump’s executive order Friday to impose a 90-day ban that denies entry to citizens from seven Muslim countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia.

The order also suspends the admittance of all refugees to the U.S. for 120 days and terminates indefinitely all refugee admissions from Syria.

“The order institutionalizes racism, and fosters an environment in which people racialised as Muslim are vulnerable to ongoing and intensifying acts of violence and hatred,” said the widely circulated petition.

“Among those affected by the order are academics and students who are unable to participate in conferences and the free communication of ideas. We the undersigned take action in solidarity with those affected by Trump’s executive order.”

Ever since the so-called Muslim travel ban was issued, numerous academic associations including Universities Canada, the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Association of American Universities have issued statements condemning the practice.

Shannon Dea, a philosophy professor at the University of Waterloo, said it is an easy decision for many scholars who could earn a “CV line” from presenting at these conferences.

Some academics who object to the boycott worry it could further isolate their colleagues within the U.S. who can’t travel to conferences relocated abroad for fear of refused readmissions to the country.

“They are already feeling downhearted. It will be another blow to them,” said Dea, who signed the petition. “But we have to make clear we can’t normalize the new (Trump) administration. When I get an invitation to a conference in the U.S., I can give a clear answer and say I’m not travelling and it’s not business as usual.”

Many of the petitioning academics say they don’t believe their boycott will make the Trump administration budge.

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“I feel that I cannot enter the U.S. as that would be condoning Trump’s action. I realize that my actions will have little economic effect but it’s a point of principle,” said Jen Marchbank, a professor in gender sexuality and women’s studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

“I refused to enter apartheid South Africa, too. I see little difference between the U.S.A. today and apartheid South Africa in terms of ethics and morals.”

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