This week the American Civil Liberties Union amended a lawsuit in a Boston federal court on behalf of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Its intent is to wrest an explanation from the Departments of State and Homeland Security as to why the U.S. government refuses to admit internationally known South African scholar Adam Habib into the United States for purposes of scholarly exchange. Professor Habib was denied a visa on the charge that he "engaged in terrorist activities," but the government has not produced and refuses to produce supporting evidence or to even specify his alleged offense.
The real explanation for Habib's visa denial seems to be "ideological exclusion," an unwritten policy by which the government refuses to allow people who have expressed critical political views from entering the country.
As a scientific association whose goal is to advance sociology and promote its contributions to society, the ASA had invited Habib to speak at the Association's 2007 Annual Meeting. Habib, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, has a Ph.D. in political science from the City University of New York and is 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. As such, Habib 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 confiscated Habib's visa and turned him away at JFK airport -- following 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 suspicious quietness. Only after polite prodding was there any government acknowledgement that the scientific gathering was fast approaching and assurance that a decision would be forthcoming.
The prolonged unfolding of Habib's visa review and the U.S. government's latest baseless denial challenges our country's commitment to global democratic goals. Freedom to present scientific research and debate its implications for society are hallmarks of American democratic culture and the foundation 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 visa denials or de facto denials on ideological grounds, because such action suppresses free intellectual exchange. The robustness of our scholarship depends upon hearing informed views and upon vigorous debate. No less than academic freedom is at stake.
Cloaked in a year's worth of State and Homeland Security secrecy, the U.S. government's lack of explanation and inaction on Habib's visa says much about emerging norms for government behavior that lack transparency and accountability. What does it mean to tout democracy as an aspiration for the world if our own government increasingly undermines our democratic 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 decisions on scholars' visas have not flowed easily, or at all, from the State Department in recent years, suggesting a disturbing pattern. In the face of government non-accountability, can the United States retain our nation's well-earned "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?
Participants in the ASA's August 2008 Annual Meeting in Boston still hope to hear Dr. 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 failed nations that became afraid of critical thought and debate. Our nation was built instead and deliberately upon the belief that the vigorous defense of our First Amendment rights to speak and be heard make us strong.