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JW Client Juan Lopez Targets Castro on PBS' Think Tank With Ben Wattenburg To regular readers of the JW Verdict, the name "Juan Lopez" may sound familiar. On October 30, 2002, JW filed a discrimination lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Chicago on behalf of Lopez, a Cuban-American political science professor who is a fierce opponent of Fidel Castro's communist regime. JW's lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, accused the state-run university of discriminating against Lopez because of his nationality (Cuban) and political views, a violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the First Amendment. Professor Lopez was hired by the university in 1995. He was on tenure track and twice received top-notch reviews from a committee of tenured faculty that referred to him as an "excellent scholar." One of the final requirements for tenure was to publish a book, which he accomplished in 2002, entitled, Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba. The book was published by the prestigious Johns Hopkins University Press and has received excellent reviews. Officials of the University of Illinois at Chicago, however, denied Lopez tenure, claiming that the quality of his book was insufficient. Lopez was then given one year to leave the university. Professor Lopez also had been an outspoken critic of Illinois Governor George Ryan's cozy relationship with Castro. Given Professor Lopez's stellar record and Ryan's seat on the university's Board of Trustees, Judicial Watch decided to investigate the professor's dismissal. Despite the personal difficulties he has endured, Professor Lopez continues to voice his opposition to Castro's regime. In a recent appearance on PBS, Professor Lopez discussed the United States' policy of appeasement towards Castro. "The American government...it started with Clinton in 1994 and it has continued the same policy under Bush...the American government wants to maintain the status quo in Cuba. It doesn't want to rock the boat; it doesn't want to take Castro down," Lopez told PBS host Ben Wattenburg. "I think the bottom line is that the Bush administration wants to keep Castro in power to avoid a wave of rafters. Bush has made, repeatedly, promises to Cuban Americans in Florida to…undermine the Castro regime. These promises have been made repeatedly to Cuban Americans and Bush has not delivered and I don't think that he plans to deliver." SIDEBAR: For years, Professor Lopez has publicly criticized Illinois Governor George Ryan's cozy relationship with Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro and Ryan's trips to the island in an effort to lift the decades-old U.S. Embargo. In fact, in 1999 Ryan became the first sitting governor in about 40 years to travel to Cuba.
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