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[thanks to everyone who forwarded this to me!) Dear Deborah and others, Much as I sympathize with the sentiments behind this protest, I am not quite convinced that it would be right to object in this way to the decision of the military geography research group to support a trip from which non-US citizens are excluded. The comparison that occurred to me was women's refuges, an important topic of research amongst some social geographers. A number of these have policies that prohibit males from entering. I would thus assume that a trip by researchers to such an institution would necessarily exclude males on the ground of their sex. I wouldn't have a problem with that, and would not protest in those circumstances. Whether we like it or not, many military/security installations have rules about citizenship. I think they are silly - a spy or saboteur could well have US citizenship; I also oppose the existence of military forces in general. Nonetheless, that is the nature of the beast, and some people have chosen to study it. I would be glad if - as was suggested in the earlier discussion - critical geographers with US citizenship went along and reported back to the rest of us what they saw, but don't think I'd try and stop them going. IS this a valid comparison? Opinions / corrections welcome, Nick. A few weeks ago there was a discussion on the 'crit geog' listserv regarding the AAG military geography specialty group's fieldtrip at the upcoming meeting in Denver. List members expressed outrage about the event for a variety of reasons, one being that the fieldtrip is only open to U.S. citizens. A list member pointed out that this directly contravenes the AAG's own statement of professional ethics. A few AAG members gathered recently and drafted the statement below, which we intend to bring to the business meeting at the 2005 AAG meeting in April. We would like as many AAG members as possible to sign. If you support the statement and would like to have your name added, please send an email to <[log in to unmask]> with just YOUR NAME IN THE SUBJECT HEADING. Please circulate this statement to any potentially interested people. Inquiries can be directed to me at this email address. Many thanks, Deborah Cowen Department of Geography & Program in Planning University of Toronto 100 St. George St. Room 5047 Toronto, ON M5S 3G3 deb.cowen@utoronto ---------- In association with the 2005 Association of American Geographers annual meeting, the AAG's military geography specialty group has organized a visit to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Inclusion in this official AAG fieldtrip is limited on the grounds of United States citizenship. Non-US citizens are prohibited from participating in this AAG event. This violates the AAG's 'Statement of Professional Ethics', endorsed by the Council of the Association of American Geographers on October 18, 1998. According to this statement: "Discrimination is extraordinarily destructive. Geographers should adhere to fair employment practices and ensure equal opportunity when evaluating peers and other employees. They should not discriminate against individuals or groups using criteria irrelevant to professional performance. Such irrelevant criteria generally include (but are not limited to) age, class, ethnicity, gender, marital status, nationality, politics, physical disability, race, religion, or sexual orientation." Despite the AAG's principled position on exclusion, many hundreds of AAG members found themselves excluded from this official event. We recognize and support the independence of specialty groups vis a vis the AAG central office, but we do not support the right of specialty groups to discriminate against AAG members in contravention of the AAG's own ethics policies. As members of the AAG, we demand that the Association issue an apology to its membership for sponsoring this discriminatory event as part of its annual meeting. We further demand a commitment from the AAG that in the future this organization will live up to its own ethics policies regarding non-exclusion. ----- End forwarded message -----