January
3, 2008
Colleges
Fight Ban on Trips to Cuba
By
Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post
Florida
universities could again make academic field trips to Cuba if
a federal judge agrees with a motion filed last month to partly
overturn a state law banning school travel to "terrorist
states."
The
Dec. 17 motion, made by the Florida Board of Governors, says schools
should be free to use money obtained through federal grants or
private donations for study in countries deemed sponsors of terrorism
by the U.S. Department of State.
A
2006 state law bans the use of taxpayer dollars and non-state
money for travel to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.
Rep.
David Rivera, R-Miami, who sponsored the legislation said it is
impossible to separate state dollars and federal or private money
once it is in the university system and that there is little need
for professors or students to go to countries such as Cuba.
"Anyone who understands the totalitarian nature of the Castro
regime and its absolute control over information would conclude
that research trips to Cuba are completely void of credibility,"
Rivera said.
The Board of Governors, which oversees the 11 state universities,
disagrees, and what is unique about the board's December motion
is that it separated it from the state's position under an American
Civil Liberties Union lawsuit. The ACLU sued the board and the
state in October 2006 in an effort to overturn the law. The board,
which is still a defendant in the case, had been represented by
Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum.
In September it hired Holland & Knight to represent its belief
that lawmakers can't control what happens to private money donated
to schools.
Voters made the board its own constitutional body when they created
it by amendment in 2002.
Since then, lawmakers and the board have struggled over which
group controls the university system.
"The board is exercising its independence," said Howard
Simon, executive director of the ACLU in Florida.
The federal government has a complex web of laws and regulations
governing foreign policy and commercial relations with the listed
countries, but it encourages and funds certain types of travel
to Cuba.
The University of Florida, Florida International University and
the University of South Florida all hold institutional licenses
issued by the federal government that specifically authorize travel
to Cuba for educational and research purposes.
The ACLU's lawsuit, which could see a final order within six weeks,
was filed on behalf of professors from four schools including
FIU.
It may be most affected by the travel ban because of its Cuban
Research Institute, which has a special federal license for travel
in Cuba.
Uva de Aragon, the institute's associate director, last took a
group of students to Cuba in 2004 with private money to study
the country's history, art, music and architecture.
They met with a group of Cuban students who, de Aragon said, criticized
capitalism and wanted only to talk about politics and how Cuba
had no drug problems.
But what her students saw on the streets was very different.
"The reality of Cuba cannot be hidden," said de Aragon,
who also had a student who met her grandmother for the first time
during the trip and recorded the woman singing and telling stories.
"No matter how many slides I could show them in a Power Point
presentation, there was
nothing like being there."
Still, Rivera is concerned about such travel. He wrote the law
partly in response to the 2006 indictments of former FIU employees
Carlos Alvarez and his wife, Elsa Alvarez, on charges of spying
for the Cuban government.
Copyright 2008, The Palm Beach Post. All rights reserved
