27 February 2006
The Honorable Condoleezza Rice
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20520
The Honorable Michael Chertoff
Secretary of Homeland Security
Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528
Dear Secretary Rice and Secretary Chertoff:
I write to express the deep concern of the American Association of University Professors, the leading organization in the United States devoted to advancing principles of academic freedom, with the decision of the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to revoke the visa of Professor Waskar Ari, a citizen of Bolivia, who has been appointed to a faculty position at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that was to have started last fall. The effect of the revocation is to bar him from entering the country. We understand that Professor Ari was awarded the Ph.D. in history by Georgetown University in 2004, that he was a visiting faculty member at Western Michigan University in the spring of 2005, that he was last in the United States in May 2005, and that he learned of the visa revocation last June while visiting family in Bolivia. Neither the Department of State nor the Department of Homeland Security has provided an explanation of the visa decision to either Professor Ari or to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Our concern about Professor Ari's case is deepened because it appears to be another instance of the government’s barring entry of a scholar who wishes to visit this country for legitimate academic reasons. We see a troubling pattern emerging in which foreign scholars offered appointments at American universities or invited to attend academic conferences are prevented from entering the United States because of their perceived political beliefs or associations. Professor Ari's case and earlier ones—they include the 2004 case of Professor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss citizen who was appointed to a faculty position at the University of Notre Dame, and in the same year the case of 65 Cuban scholars who had been scheduled to participate in an international conference sponsored by the Latin American Studies Association that was held in Las Vegas -- point to a disturbing disregard on the part of the Bush administration for our society's commitment to academic freedom.
We join the American Historical Association and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in urging the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security to reconsider their position and allow Professor Ari to take up his faculty appointment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Sincerely,
Roger W. Bowen
General Secretary