Mathematicians are threatening to boycott the largest and most prestigious gathering in the field this summer if it takes place in the United States, as currently planned.
Every four years since the start of the 20th century, the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) brings together mathematicians from around the world to share the latest advances and chart the future of the field. Famous speeches delivered at the conference redefined entire subfields of mathematics. The ICM is also the home of the most sacred prize in mathematics, the Fields Medal. This July, the ICM is scheduled to take place in Philadelphia – the first time in 40 years that it has been held in the United States.
NOW a petition moving the event elsewhere circulates among mathematicians. He cites recent U.S. military actions in Venezuela and Iran, the suspension of visas from 75 countries, and the continued presence of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in major U.S. cities as antithetical to ICM’s goal of fostering “a sense of international unity among mathematicians.”
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As of this writing, more than 1,500 mathematicians have signed the petition, which states that they plan to boycott the event if it is not moved outside the United States. The list of signatories includes many of the most prominent names in the field, more than 50 of whom have spoken at previous conferences.
The petition cites the decision taken in 2022 by the organizing body of the ICM, the International Mathematical Union (IMU), to move the last congress from St. Petersburg, Russia, in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. The event took place primarily online, with a small in-person awards ceremony in Helsinki, Finland.
“Holding the ICM in the United States, after the outbreak of two illegal wars, represents a double standard, given that virtually immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine, the ICM in Russia was canceled,” said Michael Harris, a mathematician at Columbia University. Harris is a scheduled panelist for the conference, although he is listed in the petition as an ICM speaker who shares its values.
When contacted by Scientific Americanrepresentatives from IMU as well as the Simons Foundation, which provides much of the funding for the conference, did not comment for publication.
The petition follows months of concern about the conference within the mathematics community. “You don’t get 1,500 signatures in 10 days without a large number of mathematicians having already filed their complaints with their professional societies and with the ICM organizers,” explains Ila Varma, a mathematician at the University of Toronto and one of the co-authors of the petition.
In January, before the events in Venezuela and Iran, the French Mathematical Society (SMF) announced he would skip the event (France is a mathematical powerhouse, with more Fields medalists than any country except the United States).
“The whole world followed the events which took place in different American cities and on American campuses. The French are not used to this degree of violence,” explains mathematician Isabelle Gallagher, current president of the SMF. Gallagher cites society members’ concerns about traveling to the convention. “We were also thinking of our colleagues from other countries, particularly from the South. »
Following the SMF’s decision, other mathematical societies and organizations declared their intention to attend. The groups acknowledged the concerns expressed by their own members, but rejected these objections based on the international spirit of the event.
“International openness and collaboration are essential to mathematical progress,” Ravi Vakil, current president of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), wrote in a statement. Statement of February 19. (The AMS is not involved in organizing the ICM.) This year’s ICM, the statement continued, “will forcefully demonstrate the importance of these civilizational values.”
“Much of what we are seeing now echoes the past experience of American participation in international mathematics conferences,” says Michael J. Barany, a historian of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. Some mathematicians called for a boycott of the 1950 ICM, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, because a number of their perceived communist-leaning peers had difficulty obtaining visas to attend, Barany wrote in a statement. historical article for the April issue of AMS Notices.
Internationalism as a movement, Barany says, has always been about collaboration – and competition – between distinct nations. Like the modern Olympics and other products of the same era, the ICM has never been divorced from the external conflicts of these nations.
“There is always a point where the desire to include and represent collides with the limitations of borders, political contexts and resource constraints,” he says. “One of the recurring lessons – and this is not at all unique to mathematics – is that internationalism is always about compromise. »
What mathematicians must decide, at any given historical moment, is what trade-offs they are comfortable with. “The petition clearly proves that what is being asked of mathematicians for this particular event is simply too much,” says Barany.
Varma hopes the petition will encourage mathematicians to make their collective voices heard. “We have extraordinary global connections and we also have influence on governments,” she says. “This power is important for all of society, not just our academic communities. »
But with the July event fast approaching and the lack of response from ICM organizers, it remains unclear exactly why petitioners can exercise this power. “This is one of the most successful actions of its kind among mathematicians,” says Harris. “But then the question is: what do they want to do with it?”
