Post by RedFlag32 on May 9, 2007 18:29:43 GMT
Keeping academics out of Cuba
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.cuba30apr30,0,4747509.story\
?coll=bal-oped-headlines
By Wayne S. Smith
Baltimore Sun, April 30, 2007
Wayne S. Smith is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University and a
senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington. His e-mail
is wsmith@....
The Bush administration's restrictions on academic travel to Cuba are so harsh
that they have brought such travel virtually to a halt. Now, about 450
professors and academics from colleges and universities across the nation have
banded together to take the federal government to court and challenge their
legality.
The stated purpose of these restrictions was to deny hard currency to Cuban
government coffers. But visiting professors and students are not exactly known
as big spenders. The pittance they might have left behind would have had little
impact on a Cuban economy registering strong growth rates.
Most of the restrictions are simply inexplicable. One says that courses in
Cuba can be taught only by full-time, permanent members of the faculty. I have
taught every semester at the Johns Hopkins University for 24 years and am the
director of the Cuba Exchange Program. But because I am an adjunct professor,
the new regulations ban me from teaching courses in Cuba - even were it possible
to organize such courses.
How does that deny hard currency to Cuba? Did I, and other adjunct professors
who may have been involved, have such reputations as high rollers that U.S.
officials believed keeping us off the island was a good way to bring down the
Cuban economy? Absurd. So what was the purpose?
Of course, there are no more courses for me to teach in Cuba, even if I wanted
to be a full-time member of the faculty. From 1997 until we were prevented from
doing so in June 2004, Johns Hopkins had taken to Cuba 15 to 20 students for
three weeks every January to focus on some aspect of Cuban society, history or
culture. These courses were very popular with our students, especially because
they neatly fit between semesters and did not interfere with graduation
schedules.
But the new regulations require that the courses be no less than 10 weeks.
That would mean spending an extra semester registered at Hopkins and would bar
on-time graduation. Our students prefer to graduate, and so, for all practical
purposes, Hopkins courses in Cuba have been brought to a halt - as have courses
in Cuba organized by most other colleges and universities.
Another provision of the new restrictions is that in order to register for a
course given in Cuba, students must be full-time degree candidates at the
college or university offering the course. This goes against the traditional
practice of allowing students from other institutions to participate in such
courses and ended academic consortia that allowed colleges and universities to
send students to one another's Cuba programs, thereby greatly reducing the costs
and making them accessible to more students.
Why were these restrictions put in place? The first reason put forward by the
Treasury Department was "to eliminate a practice [of abusing academic licenses]
that was undermining the embargo's purpose of isolating the dictatorship
economically."
But the Treasury Department could point to no abuses. No academic travel
licenses had been revoked. No academic group had been accused of violating the
rules.
One suspects that such "abuses" were nothing more than inventions of the
Treasury Department to give fictitious justification to its new restrictions on
academic travel.
The second reason for the policy put forward by Treasury officials is even
more surreal. It was intended "to promote civil society by continuing to foster
free exchange of ideas between American students and professors and members of
Cuban society."
Can they be serious? They must have known that the new restrictions would have
the opposite effect.
The Supreme Court in various cases has held that an academic institution may,
without interference from the government, decide which courses could be taught,
how they would be taught, who could take them and who could teach them. The
restrictions handed down in 2004 violate all of these.
That is why the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel, of which I
am the chairman, has challenged the legality of these measures. It has just
presented its brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,
pointing out that the restrictions on academic travel initiated in 2004 can only
be seen as an assault by the executive branch on the constitutionally protected
rights of U.S. citizens. It is an assault that must be turned back.
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'
Check out our Hunterbear social justice website: www.hunterbear.org
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]
www.hunterbear.org/GRAY%20LANDS%20AND%20GRAY%20GHOSTS.htm
www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.cuba30apr30,0,4747509.story\
?coll=bal-oped-headlines
By Wayne S. Smith
Baltimore Sun, April 30, 2007
Wayne S. Smith is an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University and a
senior fellow at the Center for International Policy in Washington. His e-mail
is wsmith@....
The Bush administration's restrictions on academic travel to Cuba are so harsh
that they have brought such travel virtually to a halt. Now, about 450
professors and academics from colleges and universities across the nation have
banded together to take the federal government to court and challenge their
legality.
The stated purpose of these restrictions was to deny hard currency to Cuban
government coffers. But visiting professors and students are not exactly known
as big spenders. The pittance they might have left behind would have had little
impact on a Cuban economy registering strong growth rates.
Most of the restrictions are simply inexplicable. One says that courses in
Cuba can be taught only by full-time, permanent members of the faculty. I have
taught every semester at the Johns Hopkins University for 24 years and am the
director of the Cuba Exchange Program. But because I am an adjunct professor,
the new regulations ban me from teaching courses in Cuba - even were it possible
to organize such courses.
How does that deny hard currency to Cuba? Did I, and other adjunct professors
who may have been involved, have such reputations as high rollers that U.S.
officials believed keeping us off the island was a good way to bring down the
Cuban economy? Absurd. So what was the purpose?
Of course, there are no more courses for me to teach in Cuba, even if I wanted
to be a full-time member of the faculty. From 1997 until we were prevented from
doing so in June 2004, Johns Hopkins had taken to Cuba 15 to 20 students for
three weeks every January to focus on some aspect of Cuban society, history or
culture. These courses were very popular with our students, especially because
they neatly fit between semesters and did not interfere with graduation
schedules.
But the new regulations require that the courses be no less than 10 weeks.
That would mean spending an extra semester registered at Hopkins and would bar
on-time graduation. Our students prefer to graduate, and so, for all practical
purposes, Hopkins courses in Cuba have been brought to a halt - as have courses
in Cuba organized by most other colleges and universities.
Another provision of the new restrictions is that in order to register for a
course given in Cuba, students must be full-time degree candidates at the
college or university offering the course. This goes against the traditional
practice of allowing students from other institutions to participate in such
courses and ended academic consortia that allowed colleges and universities to
send students to one another's Cuba programs, thereby greatly reducing the costs
and making them accessible to more students.
Why were these restrictions put in place? The first reason put forward by the
Treasury Department was "to eliminate a practice [of abusing academic licenses]
that was undermining the embargo's purpose of isolating the dictatorship
economically."
But the Treasury Department could point to no abuses. No academic travel
licenses had been revoked. No academic group had been accused of violating the
rules.
One suspects that such "abuses" were nothing more than inventions of the
Treasury Department to give fictitious justification to its new restrictions on
academic travel.
The second reason for the policy put forward by Treasury officials is even
more surreal. It was intended "to promote civil society by continuing to foster
free exchange of ideas between American students and professors and members of
Cuban society."
Can they be serious? They must have known that the new restrictions would have
the opposite effect.
The Supreme Court in various cases has held that an academic institution may,
without interference from the government, decide which courses could be taught,
how they would be taught, who could take them and who could teach them. The
restrictions handed down in 2004 violate all of these.
That is why the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel, of which I
am the chairman, has challenged the legality of these measures. It has just
presented its brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia,
pointing out that the restrictions on academic travel initiated in 2004 can only
be seen as an assault by the executive branch on the constitutionally protected
rights of U.S. citizens. It is an assault that must be turned back.
HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'
Check out our Hunterbear social justice website: www.hunterbear.org
[The site is dedicated to our one-half Bobcat, Cloudy Gray:
hunterbear.org/cloudy_gray.htm
In our Gray Hole, the ghosts often dance in the junipers and sage, on the
game trails, in the tributary canyons with the thick red maples, and on the
high windy ridges -- and they dance from within the very essence of our own
inner being. They do this especially when the bright night moon shines down
on the clean white snow that covers the valley and its surroundings. Then
it is as bright as day -- but in an always soft and mysterious and
remembering way. [Hunter Bear]
www.hunterbear.org/GRAY%20LANDS%20AND%20GRAY%20GHOSTS.htm