THE BUSH administration is considering barring some foreign students from certain academic fields that teach skills necessary for the application and development of weapons of mass destruction. Three major college groups propose that the government scrutinize foreign students' visas who want to study in certain scientific and technological fields. This is a more reasonable approach.
Since November, a committee that includes members of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the State Department and a host of other agencies have met to discuss whether there are certain academic subjects which foreigners should not be allowed to study ("Bush may bar foreign students from 'sensitive courses'" Chronicle of Higher Education, April 26).
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The logic is that right now, foreign students can come to American colleges and, by taking certain science and engineering classes, learn how to build weapons which could be used for terrorism. The Bush administration has not stated which subjects it is especially worried about. Educators fear chemical engineering, nuclear technology, biotechnology, advanced computer technology, and robotics are areas where restrictions could take place, according to The Chronicle.
College officials have reacted with outrage. Sarah A. Flanagan, vice president for governmental relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, told The Chronicle, "People on campus are concerned as all Americans are about the prospect of another terrorist attack. But, in protecting ourselves, we should not be giving up the very freedoms that we are fighting to protect."
But Flanagan overstates the importance of civil liberties and freedoms. While it would be very nice if Americans or those who live in the country legally did not have to make any sacrifices of themselves in the war on terrorism, this is not the case.
Long lines at airports because of security procedures are one example of a hassle that Americans have had to endure in their everyday lives. If not allowing foreigners to take certain classes is the only way to prevent terrorism, so be it. But there are other methods, in particular the State Department's plan to provide exhaustive background checks on foreign students who plan to study certain areas of science and technology in the United States.
According to the same Chronicle article, the leaders of three major college groups, the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges sent a letter to the Bush administration suggesting a new approach to deal with the issue of foreign students and sensitive academic fields.
They recommended that the government make use of the State Department mechanism, Mantis. Mantis places a hold on visa applications from foreign students who indicate that they plan to study in certain technological fields such as nuclear technology, so their applications can be scrutinized thoroughly. This is a reasonable compromise and provides the possibility of an effective method for keeping foreign students who are deemed to be possibly dangerous out of certain programs. The idea is to keep potential terrorists out of the country, so colleges and universities won't have to restrict certain subjects.
Foreign students play a very important role in many fields, in particular math and science. M.R.C. Greenwood, chancellor of the University of California-Santa Cruz, said in a speech reprinted in The Chronicle, "A major issue for our nation is that our native-born students are not sufficiently interested or are not inspired to pursue science and engineering degrees." Foreign students are needed in fields such as engineering and science, the very fields that the Bush administration is considering restricting access to.
Of course, using Mantis to identify students who might pose a threat to national security does not work if these students lie or change their minds and say they suddenly are uninterested in the sciences. The solution here is for all foreign students who already have not been cleared by the State Department, and want to enter certain sensitive fields, to get cleared by the government.
One risk of the proposed plan is the inability of the State Department or any other governmental agency to monitor foreign students adequately. This is the same American government that failed to either notice or react to the fact that the terrorists who planned the Sept. 11 attacks had been living in the country for months. But not all foreign students should be penalized because of the ineptness of certain governmental agencies in the past.
While the war on terrorism must be won, extreme measures such as banning foreign students from certain subjects are only necessary if there are no other alternatives. Better tracking of foreign students by the State Department is an alternative that can work.
(Harris Freier's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at hfreier@cavalierdaily.com.)
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