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Accountable.US: “Azar’s hiring goes against the University of Miami’s proclaimed values, and runs afoul of its own immigration advocacy. The university’s administration owes their students, teachers, alumni, and communities a serious explanation for why they think this enabler of cruelty is worth compromising those values for now” 

SEE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI billboard HERE 

Washington, D.C. — On the heels of the University of Miami announcing the hiring of Alex Azar, the disgraced former Trump administration official who served as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, government watchdog Accountable.US launched a mobile billboard in Miami, FL calling out the organization for contradicting their stated values. 

“Former Trump officials like Alex Azar who played critical roles in enacting cruel and inhumane immigration policies like family separation have no business being rewarded with cushy teaching gigs — full stop,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US. “Azar’s hiring goes against the University of Miami’s proclaimed values, and runs afoul of its own immigration advocacy. The university’s administration owes their students, teachers, alumni, and communities a serious explanation for why they think this enabler of cruelty is worth compromising those values for now.”

The billboard will be displayed through the weekend in Miami, FL. SEE Accountable.US billboard targeting University of Miami HERE. At issue: the University of Miami’s words do not match their actions legitimizing a former official who stood by twice-impeached former president Trump through some of the darkest days in our country’s history. University of Miami’s website touts its purported core values of “diversity, integrity, responsibility, excellence, compassion, creativity, and teamwork,” yet hired Azar to teach despite his well-documented role in Trump’s policy that tore families apart. 

BACKGROUND: 

  • Alex Azar was one of the senior Trump officials invited to a White House meeting at which a vote was taken to enact the “zero tolerance” policy. Under that policy, migrant children separated at the U.S. border were transferred to facilities supervised by HHS, without an adequate system for tracking families who had been separated. Hiring Azar not only goes against the University of Miami’s declared values, but refutes its own work in immigration advocacy. The University of Miami Law’s Human Rights Clinic joined a coalition of immigration organizations in an amicus brief that sought to repeal a “draconian” state law that would “exacerbate [immigrant] survivors’ trauma, exposing them to inhumane conditions in detention centers and leading to family separation.” 
     
  • Azar also oversaw the administration’s botched handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that resulted in 400,000 deaths under his leadership, and parroted Trump’s misinformation about treating the virus with the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine despite a lack of scientific evidence, refused to take responsibility for the administration’s early failures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, and kept COVID-19 threat meetings classified. 

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