Main Quad on Emory University’s primary Druid Hills Campus, including the Michael C. Carlos Museum on the right. Photo obtained via Wikimedia Commons

Emory University has been walking a fine line regarding immigration in the President Trump era.

Now the school is joining 16 other research universities to file an amicus brief against the president’s recent controversial executive order regarding immigration. The brief was filed as part of a lawsuit against President Trump brought by Hameed Khalid Darweesh, who served as a translator for the U.S. Army in Iraq.

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The brief says Emory University’s mission is “to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.” It says the university “welcomes a diversity of ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, religious, national, and international backgrounds, believing that the intellectual and social energy that results from such diversity is critical to advancing knowledge.”

The University is facing pressure from students and faculty to declare itself a “sanctuary campus,” something President Claire Sterk has said she is not in favor of because it could jeopardize the university’s funding. That stance led to a walkout during her inauguration last week. But Sterk has tried to lead the university’s opposition to the Trump administration’s policies on immigration in other ways.

Sterk has signed a letter along with other university presidents asking President Trump to roll back or rescind a controversial executive order. Trump’s order blocks people from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the U.S. for 90 days, and was initially interpreted to apply to green card holders. Federal judges have ruled against the order, and it’s not clear whether the president intends to fight those rulings or respond with a new executive order.

Other signatories to the amicus brief are Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Stanford University, Vanderbilt University and Yale University.

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