Cuba Policies Inhibit Exchange of Ideas

By Gwendolyn Bradley

In September, the Latin America Working Group issued a report, Retreat from Reason: U.S.-Cuban Academic Relations and the Bush Administration, analyzing the Cuban policies of the current administration and administrations going back some forty years. The group, made up of academics in the United States and Cuba, is sharply critical of these policies. While most of the report’s political analysis is outside the scope of the AAUP’s work, the AAUP has endorsed the report’s recommendations, finding them consistent with the Association’s long-standing commitment to the free exchange of ideas and the freedom of travel and collaboration necessary to facilitate that exchange.

The AAUP has frequently protested the government’s decisions to prevent U.S. researchers from visiting Cuba, its similar decisions to prevent travel by Cuban scholars to this country, and its drastic limitations on academic exchanges between American and Cuban colleges and universities. For the past several years, the AAUP has been in correspondence with members of the administration to express its strong concern that administration policies toward Cuba have infringed on the movement of scholars and ideas between the two countries and thus violate academic freedom.

“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,” says AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen.

 Printer-Friendly Page