Muslim scholar had planned to teach at ND until government revoked visa.
The U.S. government has decided not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Muslim scholar, or provide good reasons for not doing so, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Friday.
In 2004, the U.S. authorities revoked a visa issued to Ramadan, who had been hired as a tenured professor at the University of Notre Dame. The government did not provide a reason, but officials referred to a provision of the U.S. Patriot Act allowing exclusion of foreign citizens who have « endorsed or espoused terrorism. »
Ramadan has angered some people with his criticism of Israeli policies.
Ramadan opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and sympathizes with the resistance there. But he said he also opposes Islamic extremism, and promotes peaceful solutions. « I want to build bridges, » the scholar told the Associated Press earlier this year. « But I’m not blindly supportive of U.S. or European policies. »
A federal court issued the ruling in June in a lawsuit brought on Ramadan’s behalf by the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and the PEN American Center. The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the plaintiffs, filed the lawsuit.
The government had been expected to appeal the ruling. But on Tuesday it let the 60-day deadline for appeal pass without challenging the ruling. Federal authorities now have 30 days to act on a second visa request that Ramadan filed in September 2005 that has been left pending since then.
Vijay M. Padmanabhan, a lawyer with the U.S. State Department, confirmed that federal officials had « decided not to appeal the ruling, » the Chronicle reported. Neither he nor several press officers at the Departments of State and of Homeland Security would comment on what the government intended to do next.
« We will continue to consider Mr. Ramadan’s visa request, » Padmanabhan said.
If Ramadan obtains a visa, Notre Dame would be interested in talking with him about the possibility of rejoining the faculty, university spokesman Don Wycliff said. Ramadan resigned his tenured faculty post in December 2004 when he couldn’t obtain a visa.
However, the passage of time has created some complications, Wycliff said. Since Ramadan’s resignation, Notre Dame has reopened the search to fill that appointment for a professor of religion, conflict and peace building. No one has yet been hired.
Ramadan currently is a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. British Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed him to a committee established to examine ways to root out extremism in Britain.
In the last several years, there have been a number of cases in which foreign scholars planning to come to the United States for academic activities were denied entry.
Source : SouthBend Tribune
