UF professors, student challenge Cuba travel ban

by LINDSEY FRANCO

Two UF professors and a graduate student are challenging a recently passed Florida law prohibiting the use of university money for travel to Cuba and any country deemed a "terrorist state" by the U.S. State Department.

Carmen Diana Deere, director and professor of UF's Center for Latin American Studies, and Jose Alvarez, UF professor emeritus, are among six state university faculty members who joined the suit Tuesday.

"In one word - it's unconstitutional," Deere said of the law. "And that's because the state can't try to legislate in areas that are of federal jurisdiction."

The suit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, charges that the state violated the Supremacy Clause of the U.S.

Constitution, which states that if state law conflicts with federal law, the federal law prevails. "So foreign affairs and foreign commerce would properly be the activities of the federal government," Deere said.

The lawsuit challenges the bill known as the Act Relating to Travel to Terrorist States signed by Gov. Jeb Bush last month. It will become law on July 1.

"It's really going to hurt our graduate students at UF more than anything," Deere said. She said several graduate students are attracted to UF because it has an institutional license, which allows graduate students to study and research in foreign countries such as Cuba.

"If [researchers] can't do the fieldwork, the archival work, they'll go elsewhere," Deere said. Universities can obtain these licenses from the U.S. Treasury Department to study in certain foreign countries, she added. UF graduate student Vanessa Harper, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, has traveled to Cuba to conduct research backed by university money.

The travel act will hinder her future research on the factors that affect small-scale agriculture in western Cuba.

Harper could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Faculty members at Florida International University, the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida are also involved in the lawsuit.

The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961, two years after Communist dictator Fidel Castro seized power. Most trade with Cuba is also prohibited.

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