The Tariq Ramadan episode reads like a chapter from a book of bad fiction. The protagonist is a brilliant scholar, called by some the Muslim Martin Luther, hired by Notre Dame for a faculty position at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security revokes his visa for reasons that it refuses to divulge. Under the law it doesn’t have to.
The hapless victim Ramadan finds himself in the awkward if not impossible position of defending himself against unspecified charges.
The other player is Daniel Pipes, who recently established a group called Campus Watch that blacklists many academics of repute who may provide an important perspective in the debate on U.S. public policy on Muslims and the Middle East.
The blacklisting tactics of Campus Watch would make Joe McCarthy proud.
In “Why revoke Ramadan’s U.S. visa? How about his views?” (Commentary, Aug. 29), Pipes disingenuously claims no part in the Ramadan affair while at the same time tarring him with insinuation and innuendo.
For most in the media this entire affair appears to be non-issue or an interesting debate and not a serious question of academic freedom.
For most Muslims it looks like another example of Islamophobia.
The only unanswered question in this sad affair is how successful will Notre Dame be in its defense of the scholar?
Stay tuned.
