Tariq Ramadan May Return to U.S.A.; Notre Dame Says No Intention to Re-Hire

	Tariq Ramadan

Tariq Ramadan has been invited by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to re-apply for a visa to the United States. Ramadan had been awarded the Henry R. Luce Chair at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2004 when, only days before his scheduled arrival in South Bend, the Department of Homeland Security revoked his visa. Dennis Brown, University Spokesman at Notre Dame, said the University had no intention of re-hiring Ramadan, either as a visiting professor or as holder of the Joan B. Kroc Chair:

We are pleased that today’s order vindicates Professor Ramadan, and we look forward to the possibility of having him visit our campus soon for a lecture of symposium. However, the full-time position for which he was initially hired, the Luce Professorship, has been filled, and we do not foresee making another hire in this specific area of Islamic studies in the near term.

The question now becomes, which American university will offer Ramadan a position in Middle East studies? Given the cravenness of that discipline’s practitioners, most recently witnessed in their eagerness to deny any connection between Nidal Hasan’s jihadist slaughter of fellow soldiers at Ft. Hood in November and his Islamist beliefs, the wily Ramadan should fit right in.

Moreover, the lifting of the order banning Ramadan from entering the U.S. in no way “vindicates” him (or Notre Dame). Rather, it reveals the Obama administration’s eagerness to appease the European left and the American academic establishment. The latter has wasted no time in reacting to today’s news: the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has already issued a statement praising the decision. Needless to say, Ramadan himself is elated. The rest of us should be appalled.

The Swiss-born Ramadan is the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, and has a long history of issuing apologias for radical Islamists around the world. From his current perch at Oxford University, where he is the His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, he continues to assure Europeans they have nothing to fear from the Islamists amongst them.

MEF director Daniel Pipes laid out the case against admitting Ramadan to America in 2004 and has a long-running commentary on Ramadan, including this new entry on today’s decision.

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University of Notre Dame

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.