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Narrative: Ramadan is a professor of Islamic studies at Oxford University in England. He has written 20 books and hundreds of articles on Islam and democracy. British Prime Minister Tony Blair named him to a task force that is examining ways to combat Muslim extremism.
DIANA EEK: He is one of the most intellectually stimulating Muslim thinkers in the Western world today.
NARRATIVE: That's Diana Eek, president of the American Academy of Religion and professor at Harvard University.
DIANA EEK: He is one of the Muslim thinkers who really articulates what it might be to be a progressive, engaged Muslim who is a citizen of France or a citizen of the United States and that is a very important voice to hear.
NARRATIVE: And yet... for two years now Ramadan has been persona non grata in this country unable to take the University of Notre Dame up on its offer of a tenure track position. The problem: His grandfather and father were associated with a group called The Muslim Brotherhood, which the Bush administration has deemed a terrorist organization. A provision in the USA Patriot Act allows the government to use an "ideological exclusion" to deny visas to foreign scholars. That's prompted a coalition of groups including the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Association of University Professors to sue. The suit in United States District Court alleges that ideological is unconstitutional, according to Harvard's Diana Eek:
DIANA EEK: The government is using certain provisions of the Patriot act to exercise a kind of censorship or ideological exclusion of people perhaps whose voices they don't want Americans to be engaged with.
NARRATIVE: The practice isn't new. During the Cold War, the US government used immigration laws to exclude prominent artists and intellectuals from the country. The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the Ramadan case. Nadia Mohammed, who has been following the case for the Council on America Islamic Relations in New York, said she doesn't understand why Ramadan has been singled out., particularly because he has been a voice of moderation in the Muslim community.
NADIA MOHAMMED: Basically for you and I what that means is that someone who is your brother or father and might be involved in some organization, that comes back onto you.
DTR: While the lawsuit works its way through the courts, Ramadan continues his writing at Oxford University and awaits permission to come to America.
Dina Temple-Raston, Columbia Radio News.