UPDATE: 11 June 2006
Commentary by Andrew Leonard, Salon.Com

The less we know about Cuba, the better
Andrew Leonard, Salon.Com, 9 June 2006

My crazy sunshine state is up to its old idiotic tricks again. An alert from SciDev.Net pointed me to a Science magazine article about a new law passed last week that bans Florida's academics from using taxpayer money to travel to "terrorist" states.

The states so defined are Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and Sudan, but this piece of legislation is all about Fidel Castro. The primary sponsor of the bill, Republican state Rep. David Rivera, was looking for a way to pander to his Cuban-American constituents, and he found it.

An editorial in the Palm Beach Post does a good job of explaining why this is a dumb idea that is going to cripple Florida's educational system. But Science goes one better, highlighting the various kinds of research that will be eviscerated -- to Florida's disadvantage.

Full text found online at Salon.Com (subscription required).

Tania Deluzuriaga, Sun-Sentinel Staff Writer, 23 May 2006

Florida could become one of the most restrictive states in the nation for international scholars under a proposal that would forbid professors and students from visiting Cuba and other nations accused of supporting terrorism.

Gov. Jeb Bush has expressed support for the bill and is likely to sign it into law. The measure, passed unanimously by the Legislature earlier this month, prohibits faculty and students at public universities and community colleges from using "state or non-state funds" to travel to any country deemed a sponsor of terrorists. Those guidelines would go further than those of the federal government.

Five countries would be off-limits, according to the list of terror nations issued by the U.S. State Department: Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria.

"I don't think Florida taxpayers want their public resources being used to subsidize trips to terrorist countries," said Rep. David Rivera, R-Miami, who first tried to pass the legislation two years ago. "We're engaged in a hot war against terror."

The proposal has caused an outcry among academics who say it would cut Florida off from important research, especially in Cuba. Although much academic fieldwork is funded through private foundations, not the state, the grants are often channeled through universities, not given directly to a professor.

"This is one of those instances where they're trying to be more Catholic than the pope," said Houman Sadri, a University of Central Florida political-science professor who specializes in foreign policy and relations in the Middle East. "Everyone in this country is for apple pie and their mothers. It's the same with counter-terrorism. There's no constituency against it."

Sadri, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East, including Iran, says such trips are vital if the United States is going to formulate sound foreign policy. Several Florida academics have testified before Congress and provided information to other parts of the federal government on their research in terrorist states, particularly Cuba.

Full text of the story is found online on the Sun-Sentinel Web site.