FIU law graduate Jordan Dollar doesn’t want to attack Alexander Acosta, but in light of Trump’s recent divisive behavior and dangerous rhetoric, he does feel it’s necessary to speak up—which is why he rounded up fellow grad students to draft a letter to the former dean of Florida International University College of Law, urging him to step down from his position as United States Secretary of Labor.
“We ask that you immediately resign from your executive appointment with the Trump Administration,” the letter, shared by The Miami New Times, reads. “Further, we ask that you make every effort to distance yourself from that administration’s view of the future of our nation, as that digressive view is opposite of the future envisioned by the FIU [law school].”
Dollar, who put efforts in motion after Trump sympathized with the white supremacists in Charlottesville, says he was inspired by the 300 Yale alums who urged their Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin to resign earlier this month. “As things developed, a group of us decided it was a need for the school, one to distance itself from the administration… and use the voice we do have,” Dollar tells the New Times.
And though he hopes faculty members follow suit, he also doesn’t want their message to be taken as a vendetta against Acosta.
“He was supportive of the diversity of the school,” he continues. “He was supportive of the international aspect of the law school. He supported minorities at the law school. So he did all those things, which is why it’s so disheartening that he’s now staying in this administration that’s going in the opposite direction that he took the law school.”
The letter reportedly first appeared on FIU Law’s alumni Facebook group, where some were in opposition of sending it. Others felt keeping Acosta in his position could potentially “help keep an increasingly unstable President Trump in check.”
“We don’t speak on behalf of all the alumni,” Dollar adds.
Read the full letter here.