[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Friday in favor of three organizations that had challenged the denial of a visa to a controversial Swiss Muslim scholar, reviving their claim. Tariq Ramadan [ACLU materials; JURIST news archive] had been invited to teach at the University of Notre Dame in 2004, but the government denied his visa, citing Ramadan's contributions to a charity, the Association de Secours Palestinien (ASP), which provided some financial support to Hamas [JURIST news archive]. The government claimed this rendered him inadmissible under the Immigration and Nationality Act [USCIS backgrounder] for having "engaged in a terrorist activity" by providing "material support" to a "terrorist organization." The Second Circuit vacated a district court decision [opinion, PDF] that granted summary judgment to the defendants, the director of Homeland Security and the secretary of state. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website], which filed suit on behalf of plaintiffs, welcomed [press release] Friday's decision, saying:

We're very pleased with the appeals court's decision. The court properly found that the exclusion of foreign scholars like Ramadan implicates the First Amendment rights of Americans, that the judiciary has a role in policing the government's exclusion of foreign scholars, and that in this case the government simply has not offered a constitutionally adequate justification for its actions.