March 29, 2016

To: SEI Attendees and Future Attendees,

North Carolina recently passed a piece of legislation which repeals protections for the LGBT community. This action has elicited concern and confusion. Today, the SEI Implementation Team and the two organizations that sponsor SEI - the Visual Resources Foundation and ARLIS/NA - want to state clearly our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusiveness. This is reflected in the joint statement of appropriate conduct for conferences, which we expect organizers and attendees to abide by for SEI as well.

SEI 2016 will still be taking place in North Carolina this June. While we do not support this bill in any way, we cannot relocate the workshop at this late date. However, we want to formally acknowledge any concerns you might have. We hope that the stand taken by our sponsor organizations, combined with local community responses in Chapel Hill (see below) will help reassure you that we are working very hard to create an environment of mutual acceptance and inclusivity.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions or concerns. Our respective contact information is available here: http://seiworkshop.org/contacts/.

Sincerely,

SEI Co-Chairs:

Greta Bahnemann

Jesse Henderson

Nicole Finzer

JJ Bauer

Community Responses:

Both Chapel Hill and neighboring Carrboro (we'll be patronizing both towns during SEI) have passed formal resolutions against the bill: http://www.townofchapelhill.org/Home/Components/News/News/9688/22?backlist=%2f http://townofcarrboro.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=428.

UNC Chapel Hill is working to find ways to accommodate needs of all of their students: http://www.unc.edu/campus-updates/message-community-leaders-house-bill-2/.

The UNC Chapel Hill LGBT Center has very recently updated their gender non-specific bathroom list: https://lgbtq.unc.edu/resources/resource/resource-guidesgender-non-specific-bathrooms-campus.

We will provide a copy of this list to all attendees with closest bathrooms to SEI highlighted.