Comment on this article
Foreign Students and U.S. Security
January/February 2006
by Kathrin Day Lassila ’81
The Yale Alumni Magazine regularly holds a conversation with Yale president Rick Levin ’74PhD to provide a forum in which alumni can learn his views. In this issue, Levin talks about foreign students and U.S. security.
Y: After 9/11, the numbers of foreign students coming to the U.S. dropped precipitously and the numbers in Europe rose. Why was that?
L: The Patriot Act went fully into effect in the summer of 2003. There were horrendous delays in processing visas that year, which led to a 28 percent decline nationally in foreign student applications to graduate school in 2004. At Yale, undergraduate applications held constant, but graduate student applications declined 20 percent.
| |
“Many foreign students stay in this country and contribute to its productivity.”
|
There were two sources of delay. One, the act required students to get an interview at a U.S. consulate or embassy, but the consulates were completely unequipped for this tremendous new volume of work. There were long delays. And two, the act broadened the class of students who needed security checks. But the Department of Homeland Security was brand new and more than half their security checks took 30 days or more. The number of visas rejected was very small—1 or 2 percent. But the delays were so long and the experience was so dismal that some people just gave up.
Y: This is problematic for Yale’s global aspirations.
L: It is an educational problem for Yale, and it is also a major national problem. Many foreign students study science. If we want to maintain the worldwide predominance of the U.S. in scientific research, getting the best graduate students is important.
Y: So the universities mounted a lobbying effort?
L: The AAU [American Association of Universities], other educational associations, and the business community started trying to educate the administration and Congress. Business groups were very concerned—because many foreign students stay in this country and contribute to its productivity. Our pool of scientists and engineers in industry, as well as in universities, is heavily foreign-born.
In response, the State Department began to make preparations to have more staff available for interviews in the summer of 2004. But we could not seem to break through with the Department of Homeland Security. We got many declarations of good faith, but until spring '04, it was not convincing that the department would be prepared. Then President Bush’s daughter graduated from Yale. He came to town, and I had a chance to speak with him informally. And two days after graduation, [Homeland Security] Secretary Ridge called me up and said, “You really got the president’s attention. What can we do to help?”
Y: The power of access.
L: It may be that all this would have worked itself out without high-level intervention. But in any case, in the summer of '04, 85 percent of the security checks were resolved within two weeks. And although applications for admission in 2005 declined further, it was only by 5 percent. We don’t have definitive numbers yet for this year, but indications are that things are improving.
Y: There is also a problem now with access to scientific equipment.
L: About a year and a half ago, a Commerce Department inspector observed that universities rarely sought licenses for teaching students how to use equipment that can’t be exported without a license. The idea is that if a piece of equipment cannot be exported to China or Russia or Iran without a license, then teaching a student how to operate that equipment is a “deemed” export.
Y: So we haven’t exported the machine, but we’ve imported a person from that country to work on it.
| |
“We’ve had a sympathetic hearing from the Commerce Department.”
|
L: Yes. But having some students in your lab who can’t be told how a machine works, while others can—it just doesn’t fit with the ethos of the university community. It would chill discussion. It would make the environment inhospitable to foreign students. And both universities and the Commerce Department had long believed that fundamental research undertaken in universities was exempted from the licensing requirements. Clearly, the regulations have some justification in commercial research, and for universities that undertake classified research. But the export control list is very long, including all kinds of basic measurement equipment. Almost nothing is deleted. There are many 20-year-old technologies on this list. If universities had to apply for licenses, we would overwhelm the regulators with tens of thousands of applications, since a separate license must be issued for every single student using a piece of equipment. And what extra national security are you getting? Very little. Most of this equipment is exported freely to Europe and Latin America—people can get access to it just by going there.
I’ve been heading the AAU’s task force on export control regulations, along with Jared Cohon, the former dean of our environment school, who is now the president of Carnegie Mellon. We’ve had a sympathetic hearing from the Commerce Department. They’ve come back with a compromise proposal. We recognize that we’re unlikely to come out of this with status quo ante, but we’re in a much better place than we were a year ago.
Y: You mentioned that losing foreign students would be an educational problem for Yale.
L: I truly believe you learn more about yourself when you’re forced to articulate your values and beliefs to someone who doesn’t share them. Also, in hearing other people’s justification for their beliefs, you may be exposed to new ideas that strike you as interesting and potentially relevant. Diversity stimulates a tremendous amount of growth. People learn from difference.  |
