LGBTQ maths group objects to conference being held in Florida

Tampa: right on the water – but also right in the heart of Florida.

The Mathematical Association of America is, despite continued public objections from LGBTQ+ mathematicians, holding its main annual conference, MathFest, this August in the sprawling Tampa Convention Center, near Hillsborough Bay.

Mike Hill, president of Spectra, a national LGBTQ+ mathematicians’ association named after a common math word that also invokes a rainbow, said his organisation was not holding any official events at the conference this year, in light of the location.

“The MAA has long been at the vanguard of supporting rights of mathematicians from traditionally excluded communities,” said Professor Hill, a University of California, Los Angeles, mathematics professor.

He said the MAA chose Tampa for this year several years ago, and since then “Florida has passed a series of increasingly vitriolic laws targeting queer and trans people – like really, really, specifically trans people”.

Just last month, Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor and a 2024 presidential contender, signed a law restricting gender-affirming care for transgender people and banned state dollars from going to diversity, equity and inclusion programmes at public colleges and universities.

Professor Hill said it was important for people to make their own decisions on whether to attend.

The MathFest situation is just one more example of organisations facing controversy over conferences in red states – including pressure to relocate.

Hortensia Soto, the MAA’s president and a Colorado State University mathematics professor, said she was the organisation’s associate secretary when it chose Tampa.

“I did the site visit [in 2017] and everything, so I was involved in that decision, and I very much promoted it,” Professor Soto said.

She said association representatives signed contracts with hotels and the convention centre in 2018 and finalised the convention centre contract in January 2022 after a second visit there. She said she first heard concerns about picking Tampa later that year, in Philadelphia, where MathFest had resumed in person after a pandemic pause. (The MAA’s website, however, says: “The MAA did give serious consideration to moving MathFest 2023 out of Florida, beginning in late 2021.”)

Now, Professor Soto said, the association would face penalties of “over half a million dollars” if it relocated the conference. She didn’t provide these contracts, saying they included confidentiality provisions, and the Tampa Convention Center did not respond to requests for them.

Spencer Bagley, an associate mathematics professor at Westminster College in Utah, said he was among those who went to that August meeting in Philadelphia to raise safety concerns about Tampa.

In this month’s issue of the association’s magazine, MAA Focus, Dr Bagley criticised the organisation’s handling of the situation. Professor Soto also wrote in the issue, saying she respected anyone’s decision to not attend, “especially when it relates to their safety”, and posing questions such as “how can we attend MAA MathFest united, trusting that we will try to take care of one another?”

Dr Bagley told Inside Higher Ed that “it’s a little frustrating, even insulting, that this has been an issue on people’s radars since at least – at least – last August, and the best response that they can give is, like, ‘well, here are some questions that I am still facing; how do we attend MathFest in a unified way?’

“It’s just so completely missing the point that it’s not safe, physically, for a lot of people to attend MathFest this year,” Dr Bagley said.

“I think that under-represented people have always been disappointed by professional organisations,” he said. “And this is sort of a fresh new hell into which we are now being thrust.”

Professor Soto’s defence of continuing to have MathFest in Tampa is not limited to the financial penalties.

“We have members throughout the country, in every state,” she told Inside Higher Ed. “We have members and we have a Florida section – which is not a homogeneous state, like probably every state in the country – so we have an obligation to serve our entire community.

“Also, it would have been very difficult to find a new venue at such a late date,” she said. “Because of the Covid situation so many organisations moved their meetings, so it was difficult to find a place at such a late time.”

Mr DeSantis’s spokespeople didn’t return requests for comment. His administration recently confirmed chartering flights to transport migrants who were not yet in his state to California.

Alicia Prieto Langarica, a Mexican immigrant who’s now a US citizen and a mathematics and statistics professor at Youngstown State University, said she was going to bring her passport to Florida.

“Just in case,” Professor Prieto Langarica told Inside Higher Ed. “I know that it’s really rough for immigrants.

“I know what it is to have to show I’m legal in this country all the time,” she added.

She said she had to go to the conference because she was one of the associate directors of an MAA professional development programme. She said she had contacted several non-profits that served immigrant populations and the LGBTQ+ community to try to help them while in Tampa.

Professor Prieto Langarica said one “positive” she had found was “there are already people from those marginalised groups living there…we can’t just forget about them”.

“I am trying to find something positive, because the decision has already been made,” she said. And, she added, part of her thought the same reasoning to oppose having MathFest in Florida could be applied to never having the conference in Ohio. “Isn’t that sad?” she said.

Professor Hill, the Spectra president, said he was not attending himself as part of curtailing his “non-obligatory” travel to the state. Still, he has family there.

“As much as I love MAA, it’s different than, sort of, my 96-year-old grandmother saying ‘hey, can you come down and visit?’” Professor Hill said.

“MAA has said, and I applaud this, that they’re going to work to make the convention centre itself as safe as possible.”

Professor Soto said MAA was working with a group called Social Offset to allow attendees to donate to local organisations, including Books Like Me and Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, and MAA has offered Tampa non-profits free exhibit booths. Books Like Me and NAACP Hillsborough County have already confirmed their attendance, she said.

There is also going to be a panel on Florida higher education and a speech by Tampa’s mayor, Jane Castor, who is a lesbian.

A spokesman for Ms Castor said: “As mayor Jane Castor often says, diversity and inclusion are central to Tampa’s identity and a big part of why Tampa is one of the most welcoming, friendliest and safest cities in America. That will never change, regardless of what happens in Tallahassee.”

As of now, Professor Soto said, MathFest had 674 registrants, compared with 658 at this time last year. In 2019, there were ultimately 1,734 attendees, the organisation said.

“People appreciate what we have to offer,” she said. “Our members appreciate what we do. We are a community, we are a tight community, we are inclusive, we value teaching and learning, and we are very conscientious about communicating to our community the efforts and the work that we’re doing to ensure that people feel included and that they feel safe. And we’re doing the things that we have always done and taking extra precaution.”

Dr Bagley dismissed this as the MAA patting itself on the back “for all the good we can do by parachuting into Tampa for a week and inviting the lesbian mayor to give a welcoming address”. He questioned why there was no remote option to attend.

In 2025, MathFest will be in Sacramento, with less probability of controversy. But in 2024? It’s in Indianapolis.

This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Inside Higher Ed.