Florida Travel Ban
posted by Eduardo Penalver
A colleague of mine and I are working on an amicus brief concerning a new Florida law that hasn’t received much attention outside of the state. Here’s a link to a Miami Herald article on the law and on the ACLU’s lawsuit challenging its validity on behalf of a group of Florida professors. The law would prohibit any use of state funds for academic travel to countries designated as terrorist states by the State Department and would prohibit faculty at Florida’s state universities from traveling to those countries even if they use private funds. Of course, while the law is worded in terms of “terrorist states,” this is Florida, so it’s really all about Cuba. (UPDATE: To be a bit more clear, the law only prohibits privately funded travel to “terrorist states” when the private funds are routed through the state university, which is typically the case for academic grants from private foundations. The law does not, however, apply to private travel by academics using their own personal finances. So, in response to one of the comments, it would prohibit a math professor from attending a conference in Tehran using his university research budget or even research money from a private foundation, but it would not prohibit a Cuban-American scholar from using her own money to visit family in Cuba. Here’s a link to the law’s text.)
In addition to the obvious preemption/foreign affairs issues, the law raises interesting First Amendment questions. The difficulty in preparing the amicus brief has been finding analogous cases. Our first instinct was to discuss the law as an intrusion on academic freedom. The public forum cases seem to present another promising approach, but, at least in the university context, most of them focus on the rights ot students to engage in various forms of speech on campus.
The interesting thing is that I have not been able to find a comparably broad prohibition on an entire class of research activities. The closest I found was a Virginia law prohibiting people from accessing sexually explicit material on state computers, and even that permitted academics to get dispensation from the university to pursue research activities. Moreover, it involved regulation of state property and not, as in our case, prohibition on the use of private funds for research. All of this leads me to believe that the Florida law is more than a little nutty. But I’d love to get comments from anyone who has come across a similarly far-reaching state prohibition on academic activity.
July 20, 2006 at 11:28 am
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Responses (6)
Deven Desai - July 20, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Eduardo, what about the arguments realted to stem cell research? In addition, I would think the cases or articles regarding the ability to restrict sex education or birth control might provide arguments. Although I can’t claim to know the nuances of these areas, Ithink you may find good analagous issues regarding the ability to limit or tie funds to acts. My guess is that these cases and discussions will address why the restrictions are seen as valid but they may yield arguments as to why they are or should not be valid.
A similar area to investigate may be the recent censures of professors for unpopular statements about terrorism and the like. I think someone at Wisconsin (not sure) was just reinstated after a review of his teaching. Perhaps the institution’s codes or standards provide a way to show that the statute conflicts so heavily with the basic ideas and rules of a university that it cannot be applied uniformly.
Last, the idea that even travel using private funds is prohibited remidns me of attempts to regualte private behavior by the employer. So that area of law may be useful too.
John Armstrong - July 20, 2006 at 1:22 pm
My guess is that the law is intended against political science or sociology profs who might be too supportive of anything different from the official administration line, but it seems horribly overbroad as you’ve described it.
If the International Congress of Mathematicians holds its next meeting in Tehran (don’t laugh. Iran’s becoming a powerhouse in that field) I can’t go if I’m working at a Florida university?
I think Somalia’s on the list, isn’t it? Does that mean that anthropological expeditions there are out?
Oh, and what about faculty who have moved here from those states. Are they prohibited (travelling with personal funds) from ever visiting their families again?
Juan Steedos - July 20, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Blinkered nonsense. Ignoring something can only lead to harm – like planes crashing into buildings.
Doesn’t another Bush stooge run that state? Probably just as ridiculous as that other Bush-affiliated stooge with the buck teeth from Stanford who should be in in prison.
Haninah - July 20, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Is there an application-for-waiver mechanism?
Eduardo Penalver - July 20, 2006 at 4:16 pm
There’s no waiver mechanism. YOu can see the text of the law here: http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sections/Documents/loaddoc.aspx?FileName=_s2434er.html&DocumentType=Bill&BillNumber=2434&Session=2006
Maryland Conservatarian - July 20, 2006 at 5:29 pm
And I’m guessing the state of Florida just doesn’t want to be associated in anyway with terrorists state.
Hey, that gives me an idea, maybe you can argue that the recent Solomon smackdown of all those other law professors was correctly decided; that the state of Florida can still express its disgust for those terrorist states without impinging on a professor’s right to be morally ambivalent about same state if it means a free trip. You might want to ask for help from thoe profs at George Mason – they’re the only ones who got it right.
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