For scholars from around the world, a Fulbright award is an academic triumph, a chance to study and live in the United States.
But for Russian participants in the flagship U.S. exchange program, that achievement may have soured. Top Russian officials have called alumni of Fulbright and other American exchange programs potential spies and agents of foreign influence. Last month, the Russian government designated the Institute of International Education, which administers the Fulbright Program, an “undesirable” organization, banning it from operating in the country and making any association with it illegal.
“It’s not what we expected when we received the most prestigious award from the U.S. government,” said Violetta Soboleva, a Fulbright alumna and doctoral student at the City University of New York.
As a condition of their American visas, Fulbright recipients are supposed to return to their home country for two years, an obligation that they fear could lead to fines or even jail time. While the U.S. Department of State has said it cannot grant a broad waiver of the home-residency requirement for Russian Fulbrighters, it has suggested they could pursue individual options to remain in the United States or to go to a third country.
Once seen as symbols of prestige, the international fellowships have become enmeshed in geopolitics, to the dismay of scholars, some of whom said they were not politically active. “I don’t understand why there is a focus on people whose only guilt is that they want to learn and bring back knowledge to their country,” said Veronika Ivanova, who is studying at the Claremont Graduate University, in California.
The Fulbright Program, which was founded in the wake of World War II to advance international engagement and mutual understanding, has had a long history in Russia. Even during the Cold War, Fulbright arranged academic exchanges between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago ruptured scholarly relations. However, while the State Department suspended sending American scholars and students to Russia, it continued to award fellowships to Russians. There are 100 current Russian Fulbright scholars, including graduate students and foreign-language teaching assistants, in the United States, the department said.
But the Russian government has increasingly taken an antagonistic stance toward American academic exchange. In January, Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s intelligence service, accused the United States of seeking to meddle in his country’s elections by “activating” former Fulbrighters and other graduates of American exchanges as a “fifth column.”
Then, in early March, the Russian foreign ministry informed Lynne Tracy, the American ambassador in Moscow, that the Institute of International Education and two other nongovernment organizations had been added to a government blacklist. The ministry accused them of running “anti-Russian programs and projects aimed at recruiting ‘agents of influence’ under the guise of educational and cultural exchanges.”
Under Russian law, undesirable organizations are forbidden from all activity and operations in the country, and anyone affiliated with them could be subject to fines or imprisonment of up to six years. The announcement has temporarily halted recruitment of future Fulbright applicants, the State Department said.
In a written statement, IIE, as the institute is known, said it was “disappointed” in the decision. “By taking the action it did, the Russian government has isolated its own people, depriving them of the chance to network, expand their horizons, and contribute to building a more prosperous and peaceful world.”
IIE is among some 140 human-rights groups, think tanks, media outlets, and educational organizations that have been designated as undesirable under a 2015 law, a list that includes the Wilson Center, in Washington, D.C., and Bard College, in New York. In January, The Chronicle wrote about how the blacklisting of Central European University, a Vienna-based liberal-arts institution accredited in Austria and the United States, could jeopardize Russian citizens studying and working there. (In an email, a student organizer said there had been no new developments in the CEU case.)
Enforcement of the law by Russian authorities has been inconsistent and unclear — intentionally so, many believe. So far, a handful of activists have been charged or convicted. An American professor at a Russian university with ties to Bard was deported.
Although no Fulbright recipients have been arrested or detained, several current scholars told The Chronicle they know of program alumni now back in Russia who have been passed over for academic positions or who have lost their teaching jobs because of their Fulbright affiliation.
In a letter sent to Russian Fulbright scholars on behalf of the State Department, IIE suggested they remove public mentions of their affiliation and said they could choose to withdraw from the program. But even if recipients delete Fulbright from their résumés and social-media posts, a trail of connections remain — for one, their American visas, affixed in their passports, identify them as Fulbright scholars.
Concern about potential repercussions have divided the scholars, with some arguing that public advocacy could further endanger those who want to return to Russia.
While some Fulbright participants hope to go back home, others seek to stay in the United States, and they said the State Department has not done enough to help them remain here. In a commentary published last week in The Washington Post, Soboleva called on the U.S. government to provide an urgent “blanket waiver” of the home-residency requirement and to allow them to stay in the country on special immigrant visas.
In Britain, Russian recipients of the Chevening scholarship, that country’s version of the Fulbright, have been exempt from a similar return-residency requirement.
The residency rule is a condition of J-1 exchange visas, for U.S.-government-funded programs, but it can be waived by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on an individual basis in cases of hardship or persecution, with the support of the State Department. Greg Siskind, a longtime immigration lawyer, said the Fulbright Program has historically not supported such waivers because the goal of the fellowship is educational exchange. The application can be “convoluted and expensive,” Siskind said, and because of U.S. sanctions, the Russian scholars might not have access to funds to pay the necessary fees.
Scholarly organizations, such as the Association for Slavic, Eastern European, and Eurasian Studies, have urged the U.S. government to prioritize such waivers and to consider the home-residency rule “effectively impossible” for Russian Fulbrighters to meet.
A spokesperson said the State Department would support expedited processing of waivers for Russian Fulbrighters, including financially. Failure to fulfill the residency requirement would not prevent them from being granted other nonimmigrant visas, such as student visas. “The department does not compel any Fulbright Program participants to return to Russia,” the spokesperson said. (Without completing a waiver, however, they could not apply for permanent residency in America.)
Even if approved, a waiver would not give a Fulbright scholar legal status to stay in the country after their current visa expires, the spokesperson noted. Instead, Fulbright advisers are working with recipients on other options to remain in the United States — such as participating in post-degree academic training or transferring sponsorship of their visa from Fulbright to another organization or college to pursue additional studies — or to go to a third country.
“The Department of State considers the health, safety, and welfare of its exchange participants a top priority,” the spokesperson said.
Still, scholars said some of those options weren’t practical. It’s too late to apply for doctoral programs for next fall. Many don’t have the resources or the connections to start again in a new country.
Some Fulbrighters who have participated in antiwar demonstrations or other political activism have applied for asylum, a lengthy process during which they can’t leave the United States. Among them is Andrei Kazakov, who is working on a Ph.D. at the University of Missouri at Columbia after spending a Fulbright exchange there. “I was supposed to be home two years ago,” he said. “Now I might never be.”
Recognized as cultural ambassadors, Fulbright alums like Kazakov could find themselves in exile.
