Respected academic denied
entry into U.S.
It’s not just “security walls” that can keep “aliens” from entering
Fortress America.
The State Department has this thing they call “prudential
revocation” of a foreigner’s visa. Translating the bureaucratese
into English, that means the government doesn’t have to make a
formal finding about why an “alien” is being denied entry. A
“prudential revocation” means the governments thinks you might be
ineligible for entry.
Case in point: Professor Adam Habib, a leading South African
political scientist and Vice Chancellor at the University of
Johannesburg, who also happens be a critic of Bush’s misled crusade
to maintain U.S. hegemony over Middle Eastern energy resources under
the guise of ridding the world of “terrorism.”
In October 2006, Habib, a Muslim, flew into New York City because he
was invited to attend an academic symposium being held by the
American Sociological Association (ASA). At the airport, he was
detained for seven hours and questioned about his political beliefs
before his visa was revoked. The professor was deported back to
South Africa.
In the days following the deportation, the only answer Habib got was
confirmation that, indeed, his visa had been revoked and — oh, by
the way, the visas of his wife and two kids, one of whom was
conceived in America, had been revoked too.
Why would a highly esteemed academic be banned from the land of the
free? A vague answer was sent to the U.S. Consulate General in
Johannesburg later that month, according to the South Africa-based
Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI).
The cited reason for revoking Habib’s visa is a section of the U.S.
Immigration and Nationality Act that says any ‘alien’ who has
engaged in a terrorist activity, or who is believed to be a
terrorist threat, can be denied entry.
The law also says that anyone who represents a foreign terrorist
organization, or endorses terrorist views, can also be excluded.
But, the convoluted denial did not explain how Habib supposedly
violated the Act.
In November 2007, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of
organizations that have invited Professor Habib to speak in the
U.S., including the ASA, the American Association of University
Professors, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and the
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights.
The lawsuit — still pending in federal court — asks the court to
prevent the government from excluding Habib, unless evidence is
produced that substantiates the “terrorist” accusations.
“In one fell swoop, the U.S. government has stifled political debate
in this country and maligned the reputation of a respected scholar
without giving one shred of evidence to support its claims. It
appears that Professor Habib is being excluded not because of his
actions but because of his political views and associations,” is how
ACLU’s National Security Project attorney Melissa Goodman puts it.
If you think this is about the right of non-citizens to enter the
U.S., you would be mistaken. This is about the First Amendment
rights of U.S. citizens and what the ACLU calls “ideological
exclusion,” both of which raise serious constitutional questions.
“The exclusion of foreign scholars on ideological grounds has
profound implications for academic freedom and the free exchange of
ideas here in the U.S. Crucial to academic freedom — and to freedom
of inquiry more generally — are the freedoms to hear the ideas of
others, to collaborate with others intellectually, and to engage
others in intellectual debate,” Goodman observes.
“It is settled law that the First Amendment protects not only the
freedom to speak but also the freedom to ‘receive information and
ideas’ (see Kliendienst v. Mandel 1972 and Red Lion Broadcasting Co.
v. FCC 1969).”
The ruling in the latter case says: “it is the purpose of the First
Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace for ideas in which
truth will ultimately prevail ... It is the right of the public to
receive suitable access to social, political, esthetic, moral, and
other ideas and experiences.”
Interesting to note: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was
allowed to enter the U.S. to give a speech at the U.N. during the
same time frame. A leader of one of the “axis of evil” nations can
come to New York but Professor Habib is a threat?
ACLU attorneys argue that ideological exclusion is unconstitutional
because the government cannot exclude non-citizens based on the
content of their speech in order to prevent U.S. citizens from
hearing their views.
I hadn’t heard of the Habib case until I was invited to be a reader
at the ACLU and PEN American Center-sponsored “An Evening Without
... “ in which writers and artists are invited to read from the
works of thinkers banned in the U.S.A. because of their political
beliefs.
On Wednesday night at 7, at the First Congregational Church in
Wellfleet, Mass., I’ll be reading some of Professor Habib’s work.
Other writers and journalists — Howard Zinn, James Carroll and
Justin Kaplan, to name a few — will read from similarly
banned-in-the-USA thinkers.
Ever since Adam and Eve were monkey-ing around in the Garden, unable
to resist the temptation to eat from the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil, it’s been human nature for people to seek out what
governments say should not be heard.
If you really believe in freedom, you seek out the Professor Habib’s
of the world. Even if you don’t agree with their ideas, it’s a
worthy exercise because, like the J.S. Mill quote pinned to my
cubicle wall says: “he who knows only his own side of the case,
knows little of that.”
Gonsalves is a syndicated columnist and news editor with the Cape
Cod Times.
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