From: "Kemp, Theresa D." <TKEMP@uwec.edu> Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 09:42:47 -0600 Subject: FW: the New Iron Curtain Message-ID: <7A17A445D0203848B157E8D70D1AC77E459EBC6298@CHERRYPEPSI.uwec.edu>
Hi all,
Some of you have been affected by this trend--I know Asha and I were thwart
ed in our efforts a few years back to bring a scholar on campus because she
was harrassed trying to enter the US, even though her visa was from Canada
.
--Theresa
________________________________
From: Cary Nelson, AAUP President [aaup-news@aaup.org]
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2007 8:59 AM
To: tkemp@uab.edu
Subject: the New Iron Curtain
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In spring 1983, just over two years into Ronald Reagan's first term as pres
ident, I was in the midst of a complex ballet with the U.S. State Departmen
t. My institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had invi
ted the distinguished cultural studies and Marxist scholar Stuart Hall to t
each a course and keynote a conference. He had just been told by the U.S. v
isa office in London that they had no record of his application—an applic
ation he had submitted three times. I scheduled a tentative interview with
National Public Radio, then presented the State Department with a choice: i
ssue the visa or listen to me discuss the situation on NPR. It issued the v
isa. Those, apparently, were the innocent Reagan-era days when the State De
partment could actually be embarrassed by bad publicity.
A quarter of a century later, in 2007, we are living in a very different wo
rld. Our State Department is no longer subject to embarrassment on this iss
ue. The atmosphere today is reminiscent of the Cold War, when the U.S. gove
rnment regularly barred from the country visitors whose views it rejected.
But Congress repeatedly restricted this power, first limiting exclusion to
those presenting a genuine national security risk in 1977, then explicitly
applying standards for constitutionally protected speech to foreign visitor
s a decade later, finally shifting the focus for deportation and exclusion
from beliefs to conduct in 1990.
As a result, for many years foreign scholars have given papers at conferenc
es and taught at our colleges and universities. These interactions have adv
anced knowledge across a whole spectrum of fields and strengthened our ties
with other nations.
But for six years foreign scholars have frequently been denied entrance to
the United States. Often they have been turned back after their planes have
landed. Most had already visited here without incident. Some had done so a
fter the 9/11 attacks; a number are graduates of U.S. institutions. Their s
tated reasons for visiting have been both clear and legitimate.
Earlier this year, as AAUP president, I signed an extensive legal declarati
on outlining the AAUP's consistently strong stand against the exclusion of
foreign scholars for ideological reasons. For about two years we have been
involved in litigation seeking to compel the government to admit Swiss Musl
im scholar Tariq Ramadan to the country. His visa was revoked in 2004 as he
prepared to take up a tenured appointment at the University of Notre Dame.
Then he was denied a visa to address the AAUP annual meeting. The declarat
ion I signed lists Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice, respectively Secr
etary of the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary of State, as def
endants.
Usually no reasons are given for denying a visa. In Ramadan's case, as a re
sult of our lawsuit, the government was compelled by a court to give an off
icial explanation. It said Ramadan had provided "material support" to terro
rists. The support? Donations that Ramadan had made to European Palestinian
-relief organizations which later gave money to Hamas. The idea that Ramada
n could have anticipated later donations defies reason. Last month, the Ame
rican Civil Liberties Union was once again pressing our case in federal cou
rt. On October 25, an assistant U.S. attorney suggested that potential dono
rs write to organizations specifying that no donations go to support terror
ism. Suffice it to say I am not convinced that would prove effective.
Another suit involves South African scholar Adam Habib, who in 2006 was int
ercepted at the airport and denied entry to the United States, where he was
scheduled to meet with officers of the Social Science Research Council, Co
lumbia University, the National Institutes of Health, and the World Bank. T
he State Department subsequently revoked the visas of his wife and their tw
o young children—an extraordinary step for which no explanation was given
. Contending that censorship at the border prevents U.S. citizens and resid
ents from hearing speech that is protected by the First Amendment, the laws
uit challenges his exclusion and contends that his exclusion violates the F
irst Amendment.
On many other occasions the AAUP has written letters on behalf of excluded
scholars. Sometimes our efforts and those of other academic organizations h
ave succeeded in having travel restrictions against particular scholars lif
ted, but the list of distinguished visitors <http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsr
es/academe/2007/SO/NB/excluded.htm> prevented from entering the country con
tinues to grow.
Obviously we must bar entry to those presenting genuine threats to national
security. But the government should not act as if we fear ideas almost as
much as we fear bombs. As the ACLU put it, it sometimes seems we are fighti
ng not so much a war of ideas as a war against ideas.
We urge all of you to write to your representatives in Washington to revers
e this practice and let foreign scholars visit the United States. (If you a
re not sure how to reach them, use the AAUP's lobbying tools.) <http://www.
aaup.org/AAUP/GR/lobbytools/>
You may not agree with Tariq Ramadan or all of the other excluded scholars,
but we hope you'll agree that the University of Notre Dame had a right to
offer him a job, and the AAUP had a right to invite him to address our annu
al meeting. Academic freedom embodies principles behind which all of us can
unite.
Cary Nelson
AAUP President
The AAUP Online is an electronic newsletter of the American Association of
University Professors. Visit the AAUP Web site <http://www.aaup.org/AAUP>
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