The U.S. Supreme Court could decide this week whether to hear a challenge to a 2006 Florida law that blocks funding for university professors to travel to Cuba or other countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
The Florida International University faculty senate and individual professors challenged the law, contending that it improperly infringes on the federal government's power to make decisions about foreign policy.
"As Congress and the president work to develop a response to current global events that harmonizes the nation's self-interest with the democratic ideals it promotes, the treatment of terrorism and the individuals and nations sponsoring it is at the core of America's foreign policy,'' attorneys for the professors wrote in a brief. " That the Florida Legislature passed the travel act (state law) to take a harder line against Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria than the president or Congress have taken impermissibly blunts the consequences of the president's discretionary authority to manage relations with the listed states."
But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 upheld the law. In a brief to the Supreme Court, state attorneys wrote that professors are "not constitutionally entitled to demand state support for their academic travel simply because federal law permits such travel."
"Indeed, a state's decision to support academic travel to one country rather than another, and to take into consideration the safety of its faculty and students in making such decisions, does not present an important federal question that should be settled by this court,'' the brief said.
Supreme Court justices are scheduled Thursday to consider whether to hear the case and will make an announcement later. The court receives thousands of petitions a year for it to take cases, but agrees to hear only a fraction. If the court agrees to hear the Florida case, it would start a months-long process that would involve arguments and an ultimate ruling on the professors' challenge.
Florida lawmakers in 2006 unanimously approved the bill to limit travel to Cuba and the three other countries that the federal government considered state sponsors of terrorism. While the bill also applied to other Florida public officials, the highest-profile provision barred universities from using state or nonstate funding to help faculty travel to those countries.
The state argued in its brief to the Supreme Court, in part, that it has the right to determine how money is spent.
"Florida's decision to reserve its resources for the support of academic travel to countries that do not sponsor terrorism is an exercise of its sovereign legislative power, and it does not contravene any provision of the Constitution or federal law,'' the brief said.
But the university professors have received support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and some other business groups, which filed a brief with the Supreme Court opposing what they described as Florida's attempt to "pile on" already-existing sanctions.
"The need for this court's review is pressing, as the decision below (in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) allows Florida to go on record as having a foreign policy toward certain foreign countries --- particularly Cuba --- that is harsher than the federal government's,'' the brief said. "It throws a wrench into our nation's foreign policy at a time when that policy is in flux, especially toward Cuba."
