The Observer, September 28, 2007
Volume XL, Issue 5
Campus should support stranded professor
To the Editor:
We write to raise awareness of the plight of our colleague, Marixa Lasso, assistant professor of history at CWRU. Since July, Professor Lasso has been denied an extension of her O-1 visa that would allow her to return to her position at Case from a trip to Panama. Lasso is currently stranded in Panama City by the United States government's unexplained insistence on an extensive security background check, despite the Department of Homeland Security having approved her extension of stay on June 1, 2007. Lasso is a highly regarded expert on 19th-century Latin American race relations who was first invited to the United States in 1994 on a Fulbright scholarship. Since then, she earned two graduate degrees from American institutions of higher education, and has served on the faculties of California State University, Los Angeles and Case Western Reserve University. She has an outstanding record of publication, including her recent book, Myths of Harmony: Race and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution, Colombia 1795-1831 (Pittsburgh University Press, 2007) and a 2006 article in the American Historical Review, the nation's most prestigious historical journal. All of this is to say that Professor Lasso is a rising star and of great value to our faculty and students, the university, and the history profession. No one, including Professor Lasso, understands why this is happening.
It is important that the Case community rallies in support of Professor Lasso. Her absence denies our students their opportunity to study Latin American history with her, but as important, seriously compromises the university's ability to offer the global education that we all need to live responsibly in this world. Our ability to do so should not be held hostage to unexplained and inexplicable actions on the part of our government.
Department of History
Case Western Reserve University
