As President and President-Elect of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), we are deeply disturbed and concerned by the acts of terror displayed by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hate and white supremacy have no place in our communities, schools, and classrooms. For many of you, the academic school year has started or will start very soon.

Many of you will be in classrooms in which your students watched the events in Charlottesville unfold on television and on social media, and your students will be affected by those events. The trauma of hate speech and terror has an impact on the classroom environment and on the social and emotional well-being of students and teachers. Last December, NCTM argued that We Teach More Than Mathematics and that as teachers we must stand against any act that threatens the well-being of students.

As President and President-Elect of NCTM, we are committed to a social justice position that challenges the role of power, privilege, and oppression. As educators, teachers of mathematics, and a Council, we support the use of mathematics as an analytic tool to challenge power, privilege, and oppression. We encourage all educators to challenge systems of oppression that privilege some students while disadvantaging other students. We encourage all educators to create socially and emotionally safe spaces for each and every student. And we urge educators to create structures where each and every student can be fully engaged in our democratic society in constructive ways. We owe this not only to our students but also to the society we wish to inhabit both now and in the future.

Matt Larson, NCTM President
Robert Berry, NCTM President-Elect