The job Dr. Tariq Ramadan was supposed to take is no longer available to him. Two years after the U.S. State Department barred the Swiss Muslim scholar from entering the country, the University of Notre Dame has launched a new search to fill his position.
Ramadan, who had been openly critical of U.S. policies in the Middle East, is just one of many foreign scholars subject to scrutiny in the post-September 11 era of tightened security.
Ramadan was supposed to join the Notre Dame faculty as professor of religion, conflict and peace building. According to university spokesman Don Wycliff, he held the position in spite of his exclusion by the government but ultimately resigned from the post in December of 2004. The university has since launched a job search to fill the position.
“We are not less interested in him and his scholarship… but too much water has flown under the bridge and Ramadan is committed [as a visiting fellow] to the University of Oxford,” Wycliff said, adding that “it was only a coincidence” that the candidates narrowed down to fill the position are not foreign scholars.
The U.S. government earlier this month decided not to appeal a court ruling ordering it to either issue a visa to Ramadan or provide good reasons for not doing so. Federal authorities have been given 30 days to act on a second visa request that Ramadan filed in September 2005.
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.
Ramadan, who had been hired by the University of Notre Dame, opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. In 2004, the U.S. authorities revoked a visa issued to him and did not provide a reason. But the authorities did refer to a provision of the U.S. Patriot Act allowing exclusion of foreign citizens who have “endorsed or espoused terrorism.”
