There hasn’t felt like a good time for me to post this; I have written and rewritten drafts of this over the course of the last year. But now that several established journalistic outlets have resigned to using the F-word (Atlantic, New York Magazine) while also really asking what’s going on and why it’s still business as usual for millions in the USA, it seems almost trite now. Nevertheless.

We began 2025 with a series of high profile incidents:

• ICE detentions of pro-Palestinian permanent residents,
• deportations of immigrant barbers with tattoos,
• denial of entry of international scientists,
• revocation of international student visas,

and travel bans today reaching up to 75 countries. It should have been clear early on that the USA is not a viable place for a fully international gathering of mathematicians. Of course, it will always be safer and more accessible for some than others (think back to the days of 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis). But now that citizens from less than two-thirds of all countries can even apply for an entry visa, who is the conference accessible to?

Today, before the close of January 2026 we already have:

• CIA’s capture of Venezuelan president Maduro, and
• ICE’s high profile murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, not to mention many others that went under-reported or unreported.

Over the past year, the assault on universities through federal funding cuts poses what to some—namely, academics—may feel like more of an existential threat, and for this reason math institutes and agencies quickly withdrew support for programs with any relation to diversity and inclusion (see for example archived federal funding opportunities such as this). Terrance Tao’s grievance regarding NSF cuts was immediately heard around the world. It is safe to assume that most mathematicians enter the field expecting to have minimal contact with politics.

I have been living under a rock lately, but I have so far registered hardly any dissent against any of these events from the mathematical community, except Spectra’s April 2025 Statement on Passport and Visa Policy for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Mathematicians (link). In comparison, Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and on 26 February it was announced that ICM 2022 would no longer take place in Moscow as planned. (The French Mathematical Society recently announced that they will not have a booth at ICM 2026, citing concerns for internal security and martial law, and somehow also Benjamin Franklin’s legacy.) Of course, there will always be room for debate about how much mathematicians should allow politics to explicitly enter into our professional meetings. To me, this tension will and indeed should continue to exist.

In any case, there is in fact a history of protest within our profession in the US. The organization Spectra itself has roots in JMM 1995 in Colorado, which passed an amendment in 1992 allowing for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (A detailed history is recounted in this Notices article.) Within the last decade, the Just Mathematics Collective formed and has conducted a series of actions and issued statements on many urgent issues.

Pushing back against something like the ICM taking place in the US may seem hopeless because it feels impossible to change. Or, paradoxically, it may feel trivial because much worse things are happening. To be clear, I am ambivalent about any proper course of professional action; I make no firm recommendations here, but want at least to raise the moral question. If we cannot keep our own house in order, what integrity do we have? How can one even really do mathematics under fascism? Applying the so-called “grandkid test” linked above, how will we account for ourselves in these times to future generations? How will you answer to your own conscience?