New Scrutiny of Access to U.S. Courses

THE revelations that terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and Pentagon received training at flight schools in the United States and attended a university in Germany have reignited a long-simmering debate over unrestricted access by foreign students to sensitive courses at American universities. Just before last Tuesday's terror attack, members of the national Defense Science Board raised concerns about the access of foreign nationals to research that could be used to make chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, said a former intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"One of the major recommendations is, if we can't control foreign nationals coming in, at least we ought to learn about what they're doing," the official said. "Up until 11 September, the United States never had the will to do this." The official said past obstacles included not only misgivings over the civil liberties implications, but a reluctance to commit enormous manpower to sift through the resulting masses of information. While current numbers were not available, the official said, a report at the time of the Persian Gulf war estimated that 10,000 students from a variety of nations were being trained "in advanced technologies in chemical, biological and nuclear fields."

In the wake of the World Trade Center attack, many administrators, like John Hudzik, dean of international programs at Michigan State University, fear that anti-foreign sentiment could undermine openness to international students. But Mr. Hudzik said he had become more sensitive to security concerns since last Tuesday. "Universities have a special obligation to be open institutions of creation and knowledge sharing, but we also have an obligation not to do things that put ourselves and others at risk," he said.

In the aftermath of the first World Trade Center bombing, Congress ordered the Immigration and Naturalization Service to create a system for tracking the 515,000 foreign students attending American institutions of higher learning. The system, slated to be in place by 2003, will give law enforcement officials electronic access to information about students' names, universities, dates of attendance and academic majors. Though colleges and universities first strenuously resisted the system, which had initially called for them to collect a mandatory $95 registration fee on behalf of the immigration service, academic experts predicted opposition to electronic tracking would weaken, if not vanish, in the aftermath of last Tuesday's attack.

Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who sponsored the legislation that created the tracking system, suggested last week that it should be expanded to include more information about the comings and goings of foreign students. Colleges and universities have long courted international students and, increasingly, urge American students to include study abroad as part of their college experience. Particularly in the sciences and engineering, research universities depend heavily on foreign students, who make up to half or more of the doctoral candidates. At many universities, foreign students, particularly from Asia, are a cheap source of high quality research assistance. With universities in developed countries around the world competing for foreign students, many argue that those who are not educated in the United States will take the same courses in France or the United Kingdom. Mark Kamlet, provost of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, added that qualified American students were not interested in pursuing advanced degrees in the sciences and mathematics in large numbers. Without foreign scientists, Mr. Kamlet said, "these programs would be a shell of themselves."

Dr. Mujid S. Kazimi, head of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, noted the hijackers had turned a plane into a bomb. "While we always tend to think that high-tech studies are the most dangerous, the fact of the matter is knowledge is widely available, and it's not always that the high-tech approach is what people who want to harm society will use," he said.

At many universities, foreign students, particularly from Asia, are a cheap source of high quality research assistance.

What??? These socialist lefties exploit cheap labor? I am shocked!!!!

Most foreigners who come to study here don't wish us harm. The problem is the radical minority that does and one would wish we could read minds. Short of banning all foreign students from sensitive courses its hard to see what the solution is. Anyway the hijackers who took the courses didn't break any laws, not until they took over the airplanes they and went on to commit mayhem and mass murder. So how do we keep that radical minority from taking advantage of the information resources offered by a free society from harming us without inconveniencing people with a legitimate need for it?

"So how do we keep that radical minority from taking advantage of the information resources offered by a free society from harming us without inconveniencing people with a legitimate need for it?"

We inconvenience them.

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