Travel policy to halt alumni study in Cuba

Erica O'Young  New Writer  Monday, May 12, 2003  The Stanford Daily

Stanford and Cuba won’t be exchanging students and faculty anymore, after the  University’s government-issued license to send travelers expires on May 31. On March 24, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control  eliminated the special licenses educational travel program, originally  promoted by the Clinton administration. Announced in October 1995, the  “people-to-people exchange” granted an educational license to freelance  journalists and persons traveling for professional research, educational,  religious or humanitarian reasons. The license exempted them from the U.S.  embargo on trade and financial relations with Cuba.

In August 1999, the Stanford Alumni Association’s Travel / Study Program was  granted its first special license to visit Cuba. Upon approval of academic  credit and faculty endorsement, any Stanford student, alumni or employee  could visit Cuba on an individual visit or along with other participants in  annual trips organized by Stanford’s Travel / Study Program. Last month, the  Treasury Department notified the program that Stanford’s current license,  which expires May 31, will not be renewed. Stanford’s Travel / Study Program  annually supports 160 to 180 Stanford affiliates in individual and  group-organized trips to Cuba.

“It makes me really sad,” commented Whitney Stull, ’99, a member of the  Young Alumni Association who visited Cuba from March 29 to April 17 through  the program. “I don’t think I’ve ever learned so much before . . . It was  just a really amazing combination of having our [accompanying] professor’s  lectures for a macro-level view and the people we talked to in Cuba for a  micro-level view,” he said.

The elimination of the educational licenses is part of the Bush  administration’s tightening of its Cuba policy, in light of Cuban President  Fidel Castro’s April crackdown on Cuban dissidents and heightened U.S.  suspicions about Cuba’s biological weapon capabilities.

Another reason for ending the educational licenses is the Bush  administration’s belief that travelers often used them for vacation, not  education.

“The license was being abused,” Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the U.S.  Treasury Department, told The New York Times last week. “It undermined the  intention of the U.S. sanctions against Cuba, which are to deprive the Castro  regime of the financial wherewithal to continue to oppress its people.”

The nation’s prominent cultural institutions are expected to be the hardest  hit by the new regulations. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American  Museum of Natural History, the Harvard University Art Museums and the  National Trust for Historic Preservation regularly organize trips to Cuba for  their members.

Duncan Beardsley, ’59, director of Stanford’s Travel / Study Program,  expressed his frustration at the loss of what he believes is an invaluable  learning experience.

“The greatest value was that anybody in the Stanford community was given the  opportunity to experience Cuba and . . . reach their own conclusions about  the people in Cuba, about communism, et cetera,” Beardsley said. “And more  important than anything they would learn about Cuba is what they would learn  about the U.S.”

He added, “I’m a little frustrated that our government is taking the  opportunity away from us, and I’m wondering what they have to hide.”

Participants of Stanford’s Travel / Study program conveyed their  disappointment in seeing the Cuba trips end.

“Travel is one of the most incredible educational opportunities anyone can  have,” Stull emphasized. “It’s a shame that people won’t be able to have  that incredible educational exploration. It goes a long way toward  discovering what it means to be American in the world context.”

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