Fortunately, Florida ban on academic travel to Cuba lifted

In 2006 the Florida Legislature approved a bill that prohibited public colleges from using state funds, private donations or grants to “implement, organize, direct, coordinate or administer activities related to or involving travel to” countries identified as terrorist states by the U.S. Department of State.

In other words, Florida colleges and universities were barred from sending faculty members and students to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

The bill was passed in part because a Florida International University professor and his wife, a university employee, were accused of spying for Cuba, but election year hysterics no doubt helped, along with the perception that being tough on Cuba is important when it comes to getting ahead in Florida politics.

If you are wondering about whether a state has the right to regulate that kind of foreign travel, you aren’t the only one.  A federal judge recently struck down the Florida law based on the statute’s impact on faculty members’ First Amendment rights and because it seemed too impinged on the federal government’s ability to regulate foreign commerce.

This is a good decision, and we are pleased about the positive effect this will have on fostering better dialogue about the countries the travel ban attempted to block academics from studying directly. The nations that were previously affected by the travel ban are hardly unscrupulous, but too often debate about Iran or Cuba devolves into oversimplification.

This debate is not about whether any of those countries should be on the list of terrorist states. Instead, we are suggesting we can only be made better off by examining closely why those countries are the way they are in the first place.
The Florida Legislature trumped up the security risks of allowing academics to travel to “terrorist states” when they passed the ban. That’s ironic because understanding these countries is the real key to making America safer.