A federal appeals court in Manhattan on Friday reversed a lower court ruling that had allowed the government to bar a prominent Muslim scholar from entering the United States in 2004 on grounds he had contributed to a charity that had connections to terrorism.
The scholar, Tariq Ramadan, 46, a Swiss academic, had lined up a position to be a tenured professor at the University of Notre Dame, but the Bush administration revoked his visa. The government cited evidence that between 1998 and 2002, he donated about $1,300 to a Swiss-based charity which the Treasury Department later categorized as a terrorist organization.
Professor Ramadan had said in an affidavit that he was not aware of any connections between the charity, Association de Secours Palestinien, and terrorism, and that he believed the organization was involved in legitimate humanitarian projects.
In its ruling on Friday, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held unanimously that the government was required to “confront Ramadan with the allegation against him and afford him the subsequent opportunity to demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that he did not know, and reasonably should not have known, that the recipient of his contributions was a terrorist organization.”
The panel sent the case back to the lower court for a determination on whether Professor Ramadan had been confronted with the allegation, and then given a chance to deny it.
If that had not happened, the panel said, a new visa hearing should be held now that he was aware of the allegation he had to refute.
“I am gratified that the court has found that my exclusion from the United States is without basis,” Professor Ramadan said in a statement on Friday.
Professor Ramadan, who in the past had frequently visited the United States, lecturing and attending conferences, said he was eager to “engage once again with Americans in the kinds of face-to-face exchanges” which were “crucial to bridging cultural divides.”
“I hope to be able to come back to the States and resume my work with scholars,” he said later by phone. “This is what I want.”
Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, which argued the case for the government, declined comment.
The government, in barring Professor Ramadan, had first offered no explanation, and then cited a provision of the USA Patriot Act which allows for the exclusion of foreigners who use “a position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.”
In 2006, the American Civil Liberties Union and New York Civil Liberties Union sued on behalf of three groups, the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center. The suit argued that Professor Ramadan’s exclusion violated the First Amendment rights of groups that wanted to meet with him and hear his views.
The government then cited, as the reason for denying him entry, his donations to the charity, which he had revealed in interviews with officials in the United States Embassy in Bern, Switzerland.
