On September 18, 2006, AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen offered the following comments when he joined the three U.S. authors of Retreat from Reason: U.S.-Cuban Academic Relations and the Bush Administration in Washington, D.C., at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University.
The AAUP is pleased to endorse the recommendations in Retreat from Reason, although we offer no comment on the political analysis in the report.
For the past several years, the AAUP has been in correspondence with members of the Bush administration to express our serious concern that its policies toward Cuba have infringed on the free movement of scholars and ideas between Cuba and the United States and thus violate academic freedom.
In an October 2004 letter to Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of state, the AAUP noted the contradiction in American policy: “We do not see how the Department of State can, on the one hand, deny visas to foreign scholars because their government is seen to ‘promote an agenda of repression and misrepresentation’ and, on the other hand, affirm its commitment to freedom of expression.”
The AAUP has taken similar positions regarding the denial of visas to Swiss academic Tariq Ramadan and Bolivian scholar Waskar Ari. The AAUP takes some comfort from the fact that a federal district court agrees with our concerns regarding Ramadan and that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln agrees with our concerns regarding Ari.
In addition, the AAUP is concerned that since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government has sought to enhance national security at the expense of intellectual and academic freedom. The “ideological exclusion” clause of the USA Patriot Act does just this.
Academic exchange is vital to preserving American national security: it demonstrates to scholars everywhere that Americans welcome the opportunity to engage all ideas, even if only in order to rebut certain ideas and challenge others. Actions taken by the U.S. government to protect American academic freedom by denying it to others makes no sense, and, furthermore, decreases the opportunities for dialogue and understanding.
(posted 1/5/07)