It was formed an Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel (ECDET) to deal with the

Cuba travel issue and related matters. 

Report and Call for Action

After consultations with a number of you and with Les McCabe, a small group of us met in Washington on December 9 to move ahead with the organization of the coalition first announced publicly on November 19 at the meeting hosted by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and to point us in the direction of an action program. The meeting was chaired by Wayne Smith of Johns Hopkins and the Center for International Policy (CIP). Participants were Phil Brenner of American University, Nelson Valdes of the University of New Mexico, Lisa Valanti of U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities (USCSCA) and Institute for Shipboard Education (Semester-at-Sea), Bob Muse of the law firm Muse and Associates, Mavis Anderson of the Latin American Working Group (LAWG), Rachel Farley of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), and Ti Gierke, Wayne Smith’s assistant at the Center for International Policy who will be helping with communications and administrative duties.

All decisions were provisional and can be discussed at later meetings. Meanwhile, however, it was agreed that we should call our organization the Emergency Coalition to Defend Educational Travel.  Our position is that while those in our coalition oppose all restrictions on travel to Cuba, our particular concern is with those which in any way restrict the travel of academics and the structuring of study programs in Cuba. Clearly, the administration wishes to close off all contacts with Cuba. Unless we fight for our rights, the administration will not only hold to the restrictions already in place but impose even more stringent ones. It is time to say enough is enough.

Chairs, Coordinators, and Steering Committee.  Until a formal group process can be established, it was agreed that Wayne Smith and Les McCabe (Institute for Shipboard Education) would continue to serve in the role as the primary co-coordinators of this effort as they had for the Nov. 19th meeting.  Also, solely for practical and logistical reasons, that coordinators of the four task forces called for at the November 19 meeting should be based in Washington, for that is where the focus of our action program will be. It would make no sense, for example, for someone in Kansas to try to coordinate congressional strategy and liaison with the Congress. Hence Mavis Anderson will coordinate the task force on congressional strategy; Bob Muse will be the coordinator for developing a legal challenge to the educational travel regulations; Wayne Smith will coordinate outreach efforts to the academic community; and Phil Brenner will coordinate contacts with the administration – most specifically with the State Department – in a probably futile effort to urge them to rescind the offending legislation – an effort we are making largely as a prerequisite to instituting litigation (Plaintiffs who challenge a federal agency’s actions in court must show that they have exhausted all administrative remedies as a prerequisite to filing suit).Phil Brenner will report to us on the State Department’s reaction.

Coordinators will do just that – coordinate – and will depend heavily on suggestions, recommendations and other input from participants. Further, various members will be contacted to form a steering committee to work closely with  coordinators in keeping the coalition on track and in focus.

Legal Strategies. Bob Muse will develop what will be the basis for a legal challenge to the new regulations, pointing out that they violate protected First Amendment academic freedoms by interfering in a totally unacceptable and arbitrary manner with the administration of academic programs and personnel decisions, both of which are the prerogatives of colleges and universities, not the government. In addition the new regulations cannot overcome the constitutional protection the courts have accorded international travel based on U.S. citizens “liberty interest” in such travel.  We will also be looking into the fact, called to attention by Nelson Valdes, that the Congress codified travel regulations, i.e., giving them the force of law. The regulations issued in June appear to change the law without due process.  At the very least, this must be called to the attention of the Congress, whether or not there turns out to be any legal remedy.

It is important to make it clear to the administration – and to the Congress – that we have a solid legal case and are prepared to go to court.  In a sense, our legal position and strategy will set the tone for our legislative initiative.

Congressional Strategies. With input from all, Mavis Anderson will spearhead our push for legislation not only to rescind the new regulations put forward in June of this year, but to take us back to the concept of a general license, i.e., so that anyone affiliated with an  academic institution can travel to Cuba for educational purposes without the need to secure a specific license. It will be important when the time comes to bombard the Congress with letters from colleges, universities and other educational groups demanding that such legislation be drafted and pushed forward. The coalition will provide suggested letters and lists of key congressmen and senators. Our most effective tool is likely to be having presidents and/or provosts of major universities weigh in with  senators and key congressmen from their states demanding an end to these regulations. Presidents could also usefully engage boards of  regents in this effort.

Outreach to the academic community. We now have some 75+ people on our rolls. We need to expand that dramatically. Hopefully, by March/April of next year, as we move toward a legislative initiative, we can have a thousand or more colleagues in all 48 mainland states working for our cause. It will be important to count with the support of major universities from all over the country. Wayne Smith will be in contact with each of you to discuss this effort. Meanwhile, however, a good way to begin would be to have each of you contact three or four of your academic colleagues at other colleges and universities, ideally from different states, and urge them to join us. They can do so by contacting Ti at tiana@ciponline.org and providing their names, affiliation, and contact information – though no one should expect a reply until early January.

It goes without saying that outreach to the press will be extremely important, especially as we begin to get into high gear. At some point, it may be useful to have a press coordinator. And we do not envisage this as something that would be handled mostly in Washington. On the contrary, many of you have excellent contacts with the local media and could encourage stories and editorial comment from them. You should all be thinking about how best that might be done.

AIEA Meetings February 18 and 19. You have already been informed about the panel we will be doing at the annual conference of the Association of International Education Administrators, (AIEA) to be held at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. Feb 18 and 19. Our panel will be on the 18th from 2:00-3:15 p.m. Other than our panelists, any of you wishing to participate in the AIEA meeting will have to register in the usual way (at http://wings.buffalo.edu/intled/aiea/crf2005.pdf). The registration fee runs from $100 up. That being so, it seems unlikely that many of you will be attending. If those of you who plan to do so will let Ti know at the e-mail address given above, we’d appreciate it. Perhaps we could get together after the panel. We will postpone our major organizational meeting, however, until March (see below).

Cuba Day.  LAWG, WOLA and CIP, now joined by our coalition, are beginning to organize a Cuba Advocacy Day (part education of Congress, part conference, part rally) in Washington, sometime in March. The idea would be to bring hundreds of people together, academics, including students, Cuban-Americans, agricultural and business representatives, and religious leaders, each in our own way to protest travel controls and demand that they be removed. There will be large meetings in a hall we still must arrange, a massive lobbying of Congress, and perhaps even a march on the White House (or, more precisely, to Lafayette Square). Obviously we are still in the early organizational stages. We will keep you informed and would urge that as many of you as possible turn out for this one. If done properly, this could have more impact than anything else we will do in 2005.          

Given that so many of you will be in Washington for this event (at least, we hope you will), it occurred to us that this might be a convenient time to have our major organizational meeting to formalize our coalition, define its infrastructure and announce our presence and action plans to the press, possibly the day before the other activities.

Question of Membership Rolls. All of us who have come together so far can  cooperate toward the goal we all share: ending restrictions on educational travel and interference with decisions that belong to our colleges and universities, not to the federal government. As we move toward a court challenge, however, we must emphasize that this is a coalition of representatives of accredited academic institutions and academic associations. Membership will have to be restricted to them, though all can continue to cooperate. This is something we will discuss as need be as we move forward.