Ramadan Wins Court Case

Swiss scholar Tariq Ramadan, who had been denied a U.S. visa that would have enabled him to start teaching at Notre Dame last year, has just won a court case that essentially forces the government to process his application. The case was brought on by Professor Ramadan in conjunction with PEN American center, the ACLU, the American Academy of Religion, and the American Association of University Professors, to challenge a provision of the PATRIOT Act that had barred him from entering the U.S. to teach or to take part in PEN’s World Voices festival.

U.S. District Judge Paul Crotty ruled that:

while the Executive may exclude an alien for almost any reason, it cannot do so solely because the Executive disagrees with the content of the alien’s speech and therefore wants to prevent the alien from sharing this speech with a willing American audience.

A good day’s work. You can read all about it on PEN’s website.