State sued over Cuba-travel ban

Posted on Wed, Jun. 14, 2006

State sued over Cuba-travel ban
The ACLU filed a lawsuit claiming a state law seeking to ban state
university personnel from traveling to Cuba for academic exchanges is
unconstitutional.
BY OSCAR CORRAL
ocorral@MiamiHerald.com

The recently passed Florida law that essentially bans state academic
travel to Cuba promised to escalate into a constitutional battle when
Gov. Jeb Bush signed it into law last month.

On Tuesday, the legal war began.

The American Civil Liberties Union, representing several professors from
state universities, filed a lawsuit against Florida officials in federal
court, claiming the travel ban is unconstitutional. The group also
demands a temporary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect
while the case is in court.

''This act is terribly misdirected,'' Randall Marshall, legal director
of the ACLU of Florida, said of the new law. ``This is unconstitutional,
and we hope to have this law struck down very shortly.''

The issue at hand is a state bill Bush signed into law in May --
sponsored by state Rep. David Rivera of Miami -- that prohibits state
universities from using any money or resources to promote, plan,
administer or fund travel to Cuba. That means that any support services,
such as help from secretaries, computers or fax machines at state
universities can't be devoted to Cuba travel. The law's critics say it
essentially makes it impossible for professors and researchers to travel
to Cuba, even using donations from private organizations.

The law also prohibits private universities from using state money to
fund travel to Cuba.

The bill has put some prominent Cuban-American academics at odds with
Cuban-American state lawmakers who want to maintain a hard line against
the government of Fidel Castro.

''This is nothing but an attempt by Rep. David Rivera to get some
political mileage with his constituents,'' said Florida International
University Professor Lisandro Perez, one of the plaintiffs in the
lawsuit. ``We consider this a blow to academic freedom.''

RIVERA'S PREDICTION

Rivera said in an interview Tuesday that he believes the lawsuit will
fail to overturn the law.

''The Florida Constitution clearly delegates spending authority to the
Legislature,'' Rivera said. ``My bill doesn't prevent anyone from
traveling to a terrorist nation. Only the federal government can do
that. My bill only says that taxpayer resources cannot be utilized to
promote travel to terrorist nations.''

The new law prohibits spending state money on any aspect of organizing a
trip to any of the five nations on the U.S. State Department's list of
state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

Other plaintiffs named in the suit include the faculty senate of FIU;
Jose Alvarez, professor emeritus at the University of Florida; Carmen
Diana Deere, director and professor at the University of Florida's
Center for Latin American Studies; Houman Sadri, associate professor at
the University of Central Florida; and Noel Smith, curator of Latin
American and Caribbean Art at the University of South Florida.

A major Washington law firm, Alston & Bird, will help the plaintiffs
litigate the case at no charge.

''The purpose of doing research is not to advocate or promote other
countries but to collect information and bring it back to the United
States for publishing,'' said Leonard Bliss, vice chairman of the FIU
faculty senate.

The academics worry that the travel ban will discourage top students who
have an interest in studying Cuba or other countries on the list from
remaining at Florida schools.

LOSS OF STUDENTS

''We are worried about the potential loss of many students,'' Alvarez said.

Ironically, Florida State University announced Tuesday that one of its
students who received a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship this year,
Joana Carlson, wants to study the Chinese and Cuban revolutions during
the Cold War. Carlson, a doctoral student in history, will travel to
China to conduct research. Under Rivera's law, she would not be allowed
to go to Cuba using any university help.

Marshall said the notion that academic travel to Cuba helps bolster the
island's communist government is ``nonsense.''

Rivera, who has sponsored a number of Cuba-crackdown bills, seized upon
the January arrests of two FIU staffers for allegedly being unregistered
agents of the Cuban government to catapult his bill through the
Legislature. He has said that he doesn't believe any legitimate academic
research can be done in a totalitarian state.

The governor said he was not surprised that the ACLU filed suit against
the bill.

''The courts will sort it out,'' Bush said. ``I think it's good policy;
if the courts decide otherwise, we'll yield.''

Miami Herald staff writer Gary Fineout contributed to this report.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14812674.htm