A challenge to a 2006 law banning state university-funded travel to
countries the US deems sponsors of terrorism was struck down Tuesday.
Florida-based international scholars say the decision will disrupt studies.
By Warren Richey, Staff writer
posted September 1, 2010 at 7:56 pm EDT
Miami —
Florida-based international scholars are reacting with disappointment to
a federal appeals court ruling that reinstates a ban on state university
funding for travel to "terrorist" countries, including Cuba.
The decision greatly complicates the funding of a range of Florida-based
research projects focusing on Cuba and other countries. Analysts say it
could undercut existing research efforts, encourage top scholars to
leave Florida, and deter others from studying or working at the state's
public universities.
A three-judge panel of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
Tuesday that a 2006 state law does not conflict with federal statutes
and can be fully implemented.
Under Florida's Travel Act, no money that flows through a state
university – including grants from private foundations – may be used to
organize, direct, or coordinate any activities involving travel to a
terrorist state.
The state law defines "terrorist state" as any country designated by the
US State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. Four countries are
currently on the list: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.
At the time it was passed, the Travel Act was viewed as an attempt by
Florida's conservative legislature to further tighten the US boycott of
Cuba. It was also seen by some analysts as an effort to shut down the
Cuban Research Institute at Miami's Florida International University.
Although it is a state law, it relies on a federal government
determination of terrorist states to set the scope of the academic
travel funding ban.
A group of Florida-based scholars challenged the legality of the new
measure, arguing in federal court that it must be preempted by federal
laws and policies that allow scholars to travel to countries such as
Cuba. They said the state's restrictive approach to scholarly travel
conflicts with the federal government's more permissive approach.
The federal judge agreed with the scholars that Florida could not
control the use of private foundation grant money to fund such trips,
but the judge upheld the restrictions on use of Florida money for
academic travel.
On Tuesday, the appeals court reversed the federal judge, ruling that
Florida was within its authority to restrict all funding flowing through
the state university system.
"This is a very unfortunate ruling. I am terribly saddened by it," said
Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union
of Florida, which is litigating the case on behalf of the scholars.
Simon said they are considering further review.
"I hope this is the last gasp of South Florida anti-Castro politics," he
said of the state's Travel Act. "This is a dated political tactic."
The appeals court said the state law's impact on federal law and foreign
policy was "too indirect, minor, incidental, and peripheral to trigger"
federal preemption of the state law.
"No federal statute or regulation expressly requires states to pay for
foreign travel for state university employees," the decision says. "No
federal law says states cannot differentiate among foreign nations when
it comes to spending for academic travel."
Word of the decision spread quickly among Florida-based scholars.
"The implications are really quite devastating," says Carmen Diana Deere
of the Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Florida.
"It means that scholars in Florida cannot use grant funding or federal
funding to carry out research in Cuba. It also means people's research
programs will be undermined."
She said that Florida-based scholars could still receive a federal
license to travel to Cuba for research, but they would have to use their
own funds to pay for it.
"It is really sad," said Noel Smith of the Institute for Research in Art
at Tampa's University of South Florida. She said the ruling puts an end
to a series of planned exchange programs between the institute and Cuba.
The Cuban Museum of Fine Arts had invited her to organize an exhibition
in Cuba. And she was planning a 10-week program for American students to
study in Cuba next summer. Both of those programs will now be canceled,
she said.
Last week, the institute opened a show by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa.
It will run through December 11. Since the show is already paid for, it
won't be canceled. But there may not be any opportunities for similar
exchanges in the future, Smith said.
Smith said preventing scholars from traveling and studying is
counter-productive for Florida and the US. "The more the people of Cuba
get to know us and the more we know Cubans, the better the future is
going to be," she said.
The ban doesn't just disrupt the research of Cuban scholars.
Houman Sadri, a political science professor at the University of Central
Florida, has just returned from a research trip to Iran. Now he's
worried about how he'll pay for his next trip.
He says the restriction is counter to America's interest in knowing all
it can about places like Iran and organizations like Al-Qaeda.
"My area of specialization is revolutionary states," he said. "With this
law I cannot use state funds for research in Iran, Libya, and Cuba –
basically all the countries I study."
Professor Sadri added, "This is my life."
One possible solution for researchers is suggested in the appeals court
ruling itself. The judges wrote in a footnote on page seven of the
12-page decision that there are no legal impediments to private research
foundations finding a new way to deliver funding to scholars that
bypasses the Florida state university system.
"Although grantors may need to modify their grant disbursement and
management procedures to work around the Act, the grantors are free to
do so; the state is exerting no coercive pressure – economic or
otherwise – on the grantors to discourage them from doing so," the court
said in Footnote 9.
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