Inside Higher Education, June 21
Another Scholar Turned Back at JFK
John Milios, associate professor of political economy and the history of
economic thought at the National Technical University of Athens, was
expecting to explain some of his ideas about class and politics when he
flew to the How Class Works conference at the State University of New
York at Stony Brook this month.
He just wasnt expecting to do it in detainment at the airport.
According to e-mails Milios sent to colleagues, he was held and questioned
for hours upon his arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New
York City on June 8.
Milios was ultimately sent back to Greece by federal authorities, because
of, he wrote, alleged visa irregularities. Milios added that he had
travelled to the United States on exactly this visa several times in the
past and had just checked with the U.S. Embassy in Athens before coming to
confirm that the visa was valid even though it was in the final six months
of its 10-year duration.
Milios wrote that the questioning focused on my political beliefs and
affiliations, which I find totally repellent, an extravagant theatre of the
absurd, and a clear clue of the extremist right-wing policy of the
present-day U.S. administration. His story, which has not hit the
mainstream media in the United States, was front page news in Greece.
Milios is a member of the the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA), a
Greek opposition party. In one of his e-mails, Milios wrote that SYRIZA, as
well as the Greek Socialist and Communist Parties drafted resolutions
condemning the United States for this action.
Michael Zweig, professor of economics at Stony Brook and organizer of the
conference, said in a statement that he was embarrassed at the
unacceptable political intrusion into the flow of ideas and intellectual
work across borders.
Milios was expected to present as part of a panel titled: Class and the
Distribution of Income in the United States.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not have an immediate response
to questions about Milios.
After 9/11, many academics were dismayed at what they called overly strict
visa procedures that sent the number of foreign students into a downward
spiral.
Even as visa restrictions have improved, according to both colleges and the
State Department, potentially embarrassing instances like Milios ordeal
crop up from time to time.
In 2004, Tariq Ramadan, who is Swiss and is considered one of the worlds
leading scholars on Islam, had his visa revoked, preventing him from
assuming a position as a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Last year, the American Association of University Professors joined in a
lawsuit against the federal government with the American Civil Liberties
Union and the PEN American Center, in the hopes of obtaining documents
about why certain scholars have been turned away. One of the examples cited
in the lawsuit involved a group of Cuban scholars who were turned away from
attending a conference in the U.S.
In one of the most high profile visa faux pas, Goverdhan Mehta, an Indian
chemist and president of the International Council for Science, a coalition
of national and international unions of scientists, said he was grilled
about his research and accused of hiding information, according to news
reports.
Like Milios, Mehta was not a rookie traveler. He had worked as a visiting
professor at the University of Florida, the institution to which he was
traveling for a conference when he was stopped. Mehta had decided not to
come by the time U.S. officials offered him a visa.
David Epstein
The original story and user comments can be viewed online at
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/06/21/milios.
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