Academic Rebels Far from Home

Fleeing death threats and dangers at home, scholars encounter new difficulties in adjusting to American academic life.

By Wendi A. Maloney

Founded in 1959, the ETA aims to establish an independent socialist Basque state spanning an area of northern Spain and France's southern Atlantic coast. During its campaign, the organization has killed more than eight hundred people, including journalists, academics, police officers, judges, politicians, and businesspeople. The group's favored techniques are car bombings and assassinations.

Fearing for his safety following the attack, Portillo accepted a visiting professorship in the law school at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. In November 1999, he returned to the University of the Basque Country to address a conference. While he was speaking, he heard an explosion. Colleagues soon informed him that a bomb had destroyed his parked car. This time, a note warned him that he had better leave the country. He and his university concluded that it would be best for him to take a sabbatical outside Spain.

Portillo thus began a journey that would take him to three U.S. universities over a four-year period. "Most academics in the United States expect their work to draw comment, criticism, and controversy," says Robert Quinn, director of the Scholars at Risk Network (SAR), which arranges temporary research and teaching appointments, mostly in the United States, for scholars forced to flee their countries for political reasons. "But scholars in many other parts of the world often risk much worse: censure, prosecution, imprisonment—even torture and death."

Since its founding in June 2000, SAR has received more than 500 requests for assistance from scholars from 90 countries around the world. It has intervened in more than a hundred cases and arranged positions for more than five dozen of the most seriously threatened scholars. Many of those assisted received fellowships from the Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund, which often works with SAR in helping scholars. "Together, the fund and SAR offer scholars safety and a way to remain productive until conditions improve at home," says Quinn, "with the hope that they will then return and contribute to rebuilding their society."

The United States has a history of welcoming foreign scholars forced to flee their home countries. Some intellectuals have chosen to remain in this country; among them, Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and Thomas Mann. Political conditions have prevented others who wished to return home from doing so for many years, even decades.

In spring 2003, SAR convened a conference at the University of Chicago to assess its progress to date. Scholars in attendance whom SAR had assisted voiced their appreciation for the help they had received. But some described experiences in the United States that were far from easy, underlining the many difficulties involved in trying to transfer an academic career from one country or culture to another, even temporarily.

The barriers to success that the scholars noted at the conference and in subsequent interviews with Academe included lack of fluency in English, unfamiliarity with U.S. academic culture, and conflicts with immigration law. Their problems suggest limits to the assistance that can be provided to scholars willing to risk their lives and livelihoods for the freedom to say and teach what they believe.

Writer's Block

José Portillo's first U.S. appointment was as a visiting researcher at the University of Texas at Austin in 2000-01. Following that appointment, he accepted a visiting professorship at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., where he taught some courses and continued his research at the nearby Library of Congress. In 2002-03, he and his wife moved to Reno, Nevada, where he had obtained a visiting professorship at the University of Nevada's Center for Basque Studies. His colleagues there told him about SAR, which helped him apply for a fellowship from the Scholar Rescue Fund. Portillo completed his second year at the center in June 2004.

Portillo describes the four years he spent in the United States as the "most productive of my academic life." At the University of Texas, he began researching a book soon to be published in Spanish that will compare the struggle for independence in Latin America to the political situation in the Basque Country. He says that he found teaching in the United States "a very satisfactory and interesting experience." In Spain, Portillo had been accustomed to lecturing to students unused to addressing questions or comments to their professors. He says he enjoyed the inclination of U.S. students to participate in class and talk to him about readings. "I discovered," he observes, "that teaching can be about more than talking; it is about communicating with people, getting them interested in a topic." He adds that he also appreciated the rigor of upper-level university courses in the United States.

Yet all was not rosy for Portillo in this country. He found it difficult at first to comprehend the U.S. academic system. He was taken aback, for example, by the concept of a letter of recommendation. He explains that Spanish professors are government officials who obtain their positions through competitive examination. "Requesting or submitting a recommendation letter in Spain would be seen as seeking favoritism or as a sign of corruption," he says. Friends and colleagues eventually helped him understand how to navigate the U.S. system, but that did not solve all his problems.

In Spain, he had a solid scholarly reputation in his field based on his publications, all of which were in Spanish. In the United States, few colleagues knew of his work. Initially intending to remain in the country, and perceiving the importance of publishing in English, Portillo sought assistance to improve his English-writing skills. "The first question job interviewers ask is about your publications if you are in the humanities," he says. "The only way they can learn about your work is through them."

After much thought, and a frustrating experience interviewing for long-term jobs at the American Historical Association's 2003 annual meeting, Portillo changed his mind about staying in the United States. He concluded that he was "too old to start from scratch." Besides, he and his wife had recently had a baby girl, and they wanted to be near relatives in Spain. He says they probably will not, however, return to the Basque Country.

Despite his decision, Portillo would not dissuade others in his position from trying to integrate themselves into the U.S. system of higher education. "I'd suggest that they not panic," he says. "The system is logical if confusing, and they just need to figure it out." He would also recommend that they publish in English as soon as possible upon arriving in the United States and apply for every position they can handle. In addition, he believes that scholars would have a better chance at longer-term success if offers of temporary positions extended for two years instead of one. "Academics new to the United States need at least that long to learn how the system operates," he says.

Portillo adds that he could not have accomplished what he did without the support he received from colleagues. His experience, he says, "contradicts the idea of American scholars as isolated people who don't care at all about the human necessities of others coming from different cultures and countries." In Austin, he explains, he was "adopted" by two scholars who permitted him to live in a house they owned rent free; at Georgetown, institutional representatives assisted him with the paperwork necessary to stay in the United States. He says the Center for Basque Studies was "like a second family." Besides connecting him with SAR, members of the center told him how to open a bank account and rent a house and furniture. They even helped him unload his moving van when he arrived. "If you are unfamiliar with the American way of life, doing these things can be very difficult," he comments.

A Mismatch

Theo Crevenna, deputy director of the Latin American and Iberian Institute at the University of New Mexico, agrees with Portillo about the importance of institutional support for refugee scholars. His institute hosted a faculty member from Colombia in a one-year appointment in 2002-03. "He had an office in the institute," says Crevenna, "and he received all kinds of support, including formal English-language training and assistance with locating housing." The relationship was not, however, "a 100 percent happy experience" for the scholar or the university, according to Crevenna.

The scholar was one of four members of a department of law and international rights at the Universidad del Valle in Medellín until paramilitary forces murdered his three colleagues. Like him, they were left leaning in their politics and openly opposed the Colombian government. Fearing for his life, the scholar accepted assistance from the U.S. Embassy and SAR, which negotiated with the provost at the University of New Mexico, one of SAR's institutional members, to secure a position for the scholar. The university anticipated that he would lecture and conduct research on human rights and contribute to the law school's program on human rights, all of which he did.

The scholar soon ran into difficulty, however, because of his weak English-language skills. His university-provided English lessons did not help much, Crevenna says, "partly because he did not seem to apply himself to them." Unlike Portillo, who speaks English fluently, this scholar often needed a translator to interpret his lectures for his university audiences. And he himself seemed dissatisfied with his placement at the university, Crevenna says. The institute offered to help him secure a position in Mexico, but he declined. It also tried to persuade him to apply for refugee status in the United States, because U.S. government officials said it would be too dangerous for him to return to Colombia any time soon. Again, he declined.

He seemed to have a more positive relationship with the Latin American and Hispanic community in Albuquerque. There, he provided legal assistance to immigrants through Catholic Relief Services and volunteered at neighborhood organizations serving immigrants. The scholar left the university at the end of his yearlong appointment. Quinn reports that he has since been granted political asylum and is now working in the United States and studying English.

"His was the most difficult case we have faced," says Quinn. "He was a junior scholar in a country-specific discipline, with limited English, facing immediate, life-threatening danger and traumatized by it." Quinn notes that SAR is preparing a best-practices manual on how to host a threatened scholar, incorporating lessons from this case and others.

As a result of its experience with the scholar, UNM learned that "it must be very precise about the circumstances under which it will accept refugee scholars," Crevenna says. In evaluating the scholar's placement, the law school dean pointed out that a Colombian law degree will not permit an academic to secure a long-term position in a U.S. law program. Such a scholar would need to take graduate-level courses in the United States, for which he or she would have to be proficient in English. Crevenna reports that "UNM would therefore be unlikely to accept another legal scholar who had a similar lack of fluency in English."

The university, however, which has a long tradition of hosting foreign scholars, especially in fields related to Latin America, is sponsoring another Colombian scholar. The scholar, a writer and journalist, will make presentations in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He, too, has weak English-language skills, which is why a proposed placement in the university's Department of Communication and Journalism fell through. (SAR is not involved in this appointment; it is being funded by PEN New Mexico, an advocate of freedom of expression for the literary community.)

Immigration Woes

Lack of fluency in English is not a problem for Ivory Coast scholar Jean Mathieu Essis. "I already felt an integral part of the U.S. academic system," says Essis, who earned his PhD in public policy at George Mason University in 1997. He came back to the United States in 2002 to pursue a Fulbright Fellowship at New York University, fully intending to go home at its conclusion. During the fellowship, however, Essis discovered that developments in the ongoing political upheaval in Ivory Coast made it dangerous for him to return. He has remained in the United States ever since.

Essis's field of study is international public policy, specifically the processes by which nations merge their individual interests to forge collective security policies. He analyzes multi-lateral negotiations over nuclear nonproliferation treaties as a way to understand these processes, and the NYU fellowship permitted him to focus on this work.

A month after he arrived in the United States, forces opposed to Ivory Coast's government attempted to topple it. The coup failed but was followed by a general rebellion. Essis returned to Ivory Coast in January 2003 to visit his wife and daughter only to find that he was suspected of having collaborated with opposition forces and the U.S. government, which has strainedrelations with the current Ivory Coast government.

Essis's main professional identity in Ivory Coast was not that of an academic. He was a career public servant. He held ministerial positions before and after leaving to pursue graduate study at George Mason. Just before his NYU fellowship, Essis served for two years as director of the national Department of Local Government Affairs; he reported directly to the country's interior minister. Throughout much of his government service, he also held adjunct academic appointments and published in both French and English.

Essis says he fell out of favor with the ruling party in his country for several reasons. Among them, he says, he analyzed the "systemic abuse of power by successive governments of Ivory Coast" in his political science teaching. And he criticized "the undemocratic method by which the current regime assumed power in 2000." He also ran in 2000 legislative elections against an eminent politician and well-regarded African scholar who was also a personal friend of the president of Ivory Coast. Party members pressured Essis to withdraw from the race, but he refused to do so.

In the end, the favored candidate won anyway, but the ruling party continued to be unhappy with Essis. In January 2003, a cabinet minister publicly accused Essis of "playing bad political games" and said the government "knew all about Essis's actions against the party, the government, and the country."

That was a reference to Essis's participation in functions organized by the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan between 1998 and 2002, including luncheons at which Essis had briefed U.S. diplomats about the political situation in Ivory Coast. Following the failed coup, the military intelligence services accused Essis of spying for the U.S. government and of conspiring with internal opposition parties to topple the current regime.

On January 31, 2003, Essis returned to the United States and to his Fulbright Fellowship, thinking that it would be safe for his wife and daughter to remain at their home in Abidjan as long as he was not there. After his departure, however, his wife began to receive anonymous threatening telephone calls. In March 2003, she fled Ivory Coast to join Essis in New York, bringing their daughter.

Essis says that he concluded at that point that he could not return to his country any time soon, and he applied for a fellowship through SAR and the Scholar Rescue Fund. The fund granted the fellowship for one academic year with a possibility of renewal for a second year, and SAR arranged an invitation to a university. In doing so, the organizations hoped that the U.S. State Department would agree to extend Essis's visa to permit him to accept employment in the United States.

For his NYU fellowship, Essis had been granted a visa as a scholar from a developing country who would return to his home country at the end of the fellowship to apply the knowledge he had gained. The State Department contacted officials in Ivory Coast, who said that Essis's expertise would indeed be valuable to the country, so the State Department declined to change his visa status. Essis agrees that his experience and training would benefit his country. "But the evaluation did not take into account my troubled relationship with the country's current government," he notes. At the recommendation of SAR, Essis contacted the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights for assistance in applying for political asylum in the United States. He was recently granted asylum.

Quinn says that the return requirement has been a problem in other cases. "SAR, like everyone else, wants to see these scholars reinvest in their home academic communities," he explains. "But we do not want to force people to go back to a place where they will be wrongfully imprisoned, abused, or even killed." Quinn believes that the U.S. government should adjust its visa regulations to take into account legitimate concerns about persecution, perhaps by allowing renewable visa extensions until conditions permit safe return. Under the current regulations, Quinn says, "scholars who are waiting for it to be safe to go home are forced to seek political asylum when they would rather not, just to maintain a legal status."

Essis was a senior fellow at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University in 2003-04. The dean and the associate dean of the school, both of whom were mentors to Essis during his doctoral studies, arranged the position for him. It was unsalaried, and he and his family subsisted on their savings. He had to forgo an offer of a paid visiting assistant professorship ar-ranged by SAR for 2003-04 at Nova Southeastern University because of his visa status. New York University offered him a post for 2004-05 as a senior research associate to study transitions in multilateral security agreements among nations, pending the outcome of his asylum application. Now that he has been granted asylum, he is free to accept that position.

"If you had asked me only a year ago," Essis says, "I would have gladly and proudly replied that I have not encountered any difficulty at all in working as a foreign scholar in the United States. My perspective is different today, because I have been faced with the most difficult problem one can have in this country, that is, being on the wrong side of the law, even as a result of circumstances beyond one's control."

Essis's immediate goal is to integrate himself as fully as possible into the U.S. academic system. Still, he deeply regrets what he calls his "forced defection," commenting that "a U.S.-trained scholar is a thousand times more valuable in Ivory Coast than here in the United States." Essis explains that his students in Ivory Coast tended to feel powerless to improve their country's political system, but he "brought news from the United States that it is necessary to fight and compete for everything you want," a perspective that he says transformed their world view.

He hopes that the political and security conditions in his country improve after the 2005 general elections. In the best possible world, he says he would resume his work as a "bridge builder between the academic communities, governments, and people of Ivory Coast and the United States" and establish himself as a private consultant to Ivory Coast specializing in promoting the "culture, principles, methods, and tools of effective and competitive management in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors."

Quinn says that the cases of Portillo and Essis, like those of the other scholars SAR has assisted, continue to inform the or-ganization's work. "Yes, there are limits, of course," he comments, "on what SAR can do for threatened scholars. There are also limits on what we should try to do." He says that SAR makes it clear to scholars that the positions and relief provided to them are temporary. "We do so partly to protect universities from open-ended commitments, but also in recognition of the fact that no one program can handle all of the challenges of exiled persons, nor, frankly, should it try to. Part of the recovery process for scholars involves tackling some of the challenges presented to them, re-establishing networks, and so on."

He says that SAR hopes that the scholars it supports will figure out their next move during the time of their temporary appointments. Some of the scholars will find permanent, paid academic employment in the United States, Quinn says. "Essis received such offers, as have others." Others, however, will have to seek additional training or consider alternative types of work, perhaps in "industry or at less competitive institutions, even middle schools." Quinn says that SAR cannot do much to accelerate the difficult process of adjustment faced by rescued scholars. "All we can do is help them get started and support them along the way."

Wendi Maloney is a managing editor of Academe and co-director of AAUP publications.

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