In a letter to President Bush today, Nafsa: Association of International Educators and other international groups called on the president to lift his administration’s restrictions on contacts between Americans and Cubans, including those on academic travel.

The letter, by Marlene M. Johnson, Nafsa’s executive director, was written on behalf of the association and half a dozen other organizations, including the Latin American Studies Association. It urges an easier approach to such contacts “in recognition of Cuba’s first presidential succession in nearly 50 years and as a way to increase U.S. contacts with Cuba as it now begins a transition to a new generation of leadership.”

Academic travel to Cuba has been severely curtailed by regulations issued in 2004. A coalition of academic groups challenged the restrictions in a lawsuit filed in 2006, but a federal judge rejected their case last summer. Under the regulations, institutions that want to send students or scholars to Cuba must obtain a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and study programs must meet a number of conditions to qualify for a license. Among other conditions, study programs must be for periods of at least 10 weeks, and must be provided by the institution in which a student is enrolled.

The international groups’ letter urges the administration to lift those restrictions and others, saying such “modest steps would leave in place the trade embargo of Cuba and indeed all of the restrictions on Cuba transactions that existed prior to 2003.” —Charles Huckabee