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Hello, I’m Karin Fischer, and I cover international education. Here’s the news I’m following this week:

Ruling for Students in Fake College Case

An appeals court is ordering a lower court to take another look at a case brought by several international students caught up in a federal government sting. The Department of Homeland Security set up the fake University of Northern New Jersey in 2012 to ensnare recruiters taking kickbacks for providing visas to foreign nationals. The government initially called the students who had signed up for classes at UNNJ victims but then later changed course to suggest that they were active participants and terminated their student visas. Several students challenged that decision, arguing that they were not given a right to appeal their removal from the United States. A district court threw out the case, but in a ruling last week the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reinstated it.

Visa Program Source of ‘Cheap Labor,’ Report Says

A State Department program meant to foster international goodwill and encourage cultural exchange has turned students from abroad into “a source of cheap and exploitable labor.” That’s the conclusion of an investigation into the Summer Work Travel program by the International Labor Recruitment Working Group, a coalition of union and worker-rights organizations. The working group says that students come to the U.S. for the summer on J-1 exchange visas expecting to improve their English, travel, and have cultural immersion but are instead put to work doing manual labor. The biggest beneficiaries, it concludes, are large corporations that use the students to skirt health and safety protections and avoid paying Social Security benefits.

New Restrictions on Russian Scientists

Russian scientists will have to get permission to meet with foreign colleagues and submit reports on those encounters under new government guidelines that are drawing comparisons to Soviet-era restrictions. Under the rules issued by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, foreign researchers also could face restrictions – they would be allowed to use electronic gadgets inside Russia’s scientific institutes only if it was stipulated in international agreements. While the guidelines are called recommendations, the heads of the country’s scientific institutes are required to take them into account, and institutes that work with secret material must incorporate the guidelines into their rules.

Call to Release Ph.D. Student in Egypt

The Middle East Studies Association is calling on the Egyptian government to lift a travel ban and other restrictions on a University of Washington graduate student. Walid Khalil el-Sayed Salem was arrested in May 2018 while conducting research for a dissertation focused on the Egyptian judiciary. He has since been released from custody but he has not been permitted to leave the country, although he has not been formally charged with a crime. The prohibitions have disrupted Salem’s academic work and have prevented him from seeing his 11-year-old daughter, the association’s Committee on Academic Freedom notes.

Ranking Academic Freedom

Chinese universities have been climbing the global rankings, yet the current government has sought to centralize control over the country’s universities, impose a more ideological curriculum, and crack down on dissident students and scholars. Can you be a world-class university without having academic freedom? In this week’s edition of latitude(s), my newsletter on global higher education, I explore the seeming disconnect between academic freedom and current measures of academic excellence and talk with a young researcher who is working to develop country-by-country assessments of academic freedom.