In The Dark Without a Reason

Reading the newspaper doesn’t usually make me upset. Usually. But on the rare occasion something pops out from one of the pages and really makes me bent out of shape. This past Monday was no exception, my friends.

I came across a story about a music scholar named Nalini Ghuman. She was an assistant professor at Mills college of Oakland. Emphasis on was. After a research trip to Britain, she has been obstructed from coming back into the U.S. without any sort of explanation or reasoning from our U.S. government. After living in America for 10 years she’s being treated like an outsider. “I don’t know why it’s happened or what I’m accused of. There’s no opportunity to defend myself. One is just completely powerless," she is quoted in the New York Times. Of course she’s powerless. According to the September 17th, 2007 article, even with the backing of countless societies, civil liberties groups, representatives, and congress members, nothing has been solved or justified by our government. Just silence.

I know the security level has been heightened in the last few years, but excluding a British musicologist? Give me a break. I’m sure the fact that she speaks Welsh and is an expert on composer Edward Elgar makes her completely dangerous and threatening.

Then again, I don’t have a whole lot of information to go on. From this article and the news blogs I’ve been reading, we don’t know if she’s really some sort of spy, or as Jonathan Bellman of the academic blog Dial “M” for Musicology so wittily puts it, a “shill for the militant Welsh, or the North Indian Vocalists’ Liberation Front” (it seems Mr. Bellman thinks this whole thing is as ridiculous as I do). But from all that I have read and gathered from this article, this teacher appears harmless. It looks like she’s just as in the dark and bewildered as I am about this whole thing.

This whole situation speaks highly to those who take an active part in the immigration debate these days. Upon reading the story, Kevin R. Johnson of ImmigrationProf Blog brought up a solid point: “the N.Y. Times today has an article that should make one pause about the fundamental fairness of some aspects of our current immigration practices.” No matter where you stand on the subject or what sort of experience you’ve had with this issue, this whole thing has to make you stop and think.

An official statement from Mills College reads: “as an institution of higher education, we urge the protection of academic freedom and first amendment rights, and hope that the current media attention will expedite a just resolution to this matter.” For her sake, I hope it does. She may be painted as some sort of icon or symbol in the unfairness of immigration laws, but it still doesn’t change the fact that she’s still apart from friends and students. Let’s hope she finds a way home sooner than later.