A court hearing on a legal challenge to the Bush administration’s decision to revoke the visa of Tariq Ramadan, a leading European Muslim scholar, provided some clues to the government’s thinking but also introduced new mysteries, according to an article in today’s New York Times. Mr. Ramadan, a Swiss citizen, was forced to give up a tenured teaching post at the University of Notre Dame after the government’s last-minute decision in 2004 to cancel his visa (The Chronicle, September 10, 2004).

The hearing concerned a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union over what it said was the government’s use of a provision of the USA Patriot Act to bar Mr. Ramadan from the country (The Chronicle, January 26). At the hearing, government lawyers revealed that, contrary to previous statements by government officials, Mr. Ramadan had not been barred on the basis of a clause in the Patriot Act that bans any foreigner who “endorses or espouses terrorist activity.”

The lawyers refused to explain the basis for the denial of his visa, other than to say that his case remains a national-security matter and that statements he made in recent interviews with American consular officials in Switzerland had raised new “serious questions” about whether he should be allowed to come to the United States.