ACLU and ASA File Suit over Academic Freedom

Is U.S. democracy’s beacon fading? ASA has become increasingly concerned about apparent systemic U.S. government interference in scientific exchange and the associated corrosion in the luster of the nation’s democratic face to the world. ASA has become sufficiently concerned about the need to defend our country’s commitment to free exchange—and all that it implies regarding the advancement of knowledge in scholarly communities and beyond—that we jointly filed with the American Civil Liberties Union last month a complaint with the United States District Court in Boston. We seek to wrest a long-awaited decision from the U.S. Departments of State and Homeland Security to admit internationally known South African scholar Adam Habib into the United States for purposes of scholarly exchange. ("British Boycott Threat Sparks ASA Council Action" for additional details.)

As many readers will recall, the ASA Program Committee had invited Habib to speak at ASA’s 2007 Annual Meeting in New York City. Habib, Deputy Vice- Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, is a PhD political scientist trained at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and a world-renowned scholar of democracy, governance, and social movements. He is also a Muslim of Indian descent who, as a prominent human rights advocate, promotes democracy and equality and has questioned the efficacy of the war in Iraq and certain U.S. anti-terrorism policies.

In October 2006, the U.S. government suddenly, and without explanation, con- fiscated Habib’s visa and turned him away at JFK airport—following many years of unquestioned and unhindered travel to and from this country to study, teach, lecture, and participate in scientific conferences. His visit to the United States was for a series of meetings with private research and academic organizations and government agencies including the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Habib’s subsequent reapplication for a visa to speak at the ASA 2007 Annual Meeting met with disturbing government inaction despite assurances that a decision would be forthcoming and acknowledgement that the scientific gathering was fast approaching. The prolonged review of Habib’s visa prevented Habib’s participation in New York City. The government’s denial and continued inaction speaks to the heart of spreading democracy globally. Freedom to present scientific research and debate its meaning and implications for society are hallmarks of American democratic culture and the basis of our enviable record of scientific achievement. Academic freedom has allowed scientists, intellectuals, and their scholarly societies to flourish and create one of the world’s most dynamic educational systems and robust knowledge-based economies. The ASA is opposed to the use of explicit visa denials or de facto denials that are based on ideology, because such action suppresses free intellectual exchange. The robustness of both our scholarship and our democracy depends upon being able to entertain informed views and upon vigorous debate. American academic freedom is at stake.

Cloaked in a year’s worth of State and Homeland Security secrecy, the government’s lack of explanation and inaction on Habib’s visa says much about emerging norms for government devoid of transparency and accountability. What does it mean to tout democracy as an aspiration for the world if our own government increasingly undermines our credibility? How long will it take to encourage the world’s scientists and scholars to take their knowledge elsewhere? Habib’s case is not unique. Many scholars’ visa decisions have not flowed easily, or at all, from the State Department in recent years, suggesting that we’ve entered a peculiar period. In the face of government non-accountability, can the United States retain its “bright beacon” metaphor that advertises hope, freedom, optimism, opportunity, and openness? Or, is our projected image becoming government-behind-closed-doors, a “warning beacon” of obfuscation, opaqueness and non-accountability?

We hope that participants in the ASA’s August 2008 Annual Meeting in Boston will be able to hear Habib along with other scholars from the United States, the Americas, and elsewhere. Every field of science, including sociology, is international in scope because science, by its very nature, transcends national and cultural boundaries.

History is replete with nations that failed as they became increasingly fearful of critical thought and debate. Economic, social, technological, geographic, and other factors contribute to nations’ survival or demise, but fear of thought is often a bellwether of things to come as leaders strive to regain control of worsening predicaments. Our nation was built upon the fundamental belief that the vigorous defense of our First Amendment rights to speak and be heard make us strong, not weak.