In response to President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration, Harvard medical students have petitioned to move a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute fundraiser from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, The Crimson reported.
According to The Crimson, the petition reads, “By relocating the Discovery Celebration fundraiser, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will demonstrate its core values to the nation, to the medical community, and most importantly, to patients."
The annual fundraiser is hosted by Dana-Farber, a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard. The Trump Foundation makes $150,000 each year from the event.
And according to The Crimson, at least two affiliates of Harvard Medical School were not allowed entry back into the United States as a result of Trump’s executive order.
As a result, “it was really quite easy to mobilize concern and get people involved,” organizer Colleen Farrell told The Crimson.
Despite echoing the concerns of the petitioners, however, Laurie Glimcher — the president of the hospital — announced Tuesday that the event’s location would not be changed.
“Cancelling the event outright would only deny much-needed resources for research and care," Glimcher wrote in a statement.
But some Harvard med students are still pushing back.
“We feel strongly that the way they go about fundraising has to be in line with their core values and our core values as a medical community and as a democracy," Farrell expressed to The Crimson.
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