APSA Joins Appeal to End Ideological Exclusion in U.S. Visa Policy

APSA has joined with other scholarly societies and higher education groups to ask the Obama Administration not to employ a practice of denying visas on the basis of political views and associations and to review a number of recent cases to determine if political views were the determining factors in the denial of visas. This action was based on recommendation from the APSA Committee on Professional Ethics, Rights, and Freedoms upon hearing of the case of Adam Habib, a South African political scientist denied a visa to attend the American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting. ASA has filed a lawsuit in federal courts over this issue and dozens of the nation’s leading academic, free speech, and civil rights organizations have sent a letter to Attorney General Holder, Secretary of State Clinton, and Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano urging them end the refusal of visas based on idealology. The letter is available online at www.aclu.org/safefree/general/39050leg20090318.html.