Oakland, CA–February 11, 2008. Mills College is pleased to announce that Nalini Ghuman, PhD, has returned to the Department of Music. Because of her broad scope of duties as a classical musicologist, her absence has been a great loss to both her department and Mills College.

Ghuman, 34, is an assistant professor of music at Mills College and an expert on the British composer Edward Elgar. She came to Mills in 2003.

On August 8, 2006, she was denied entry at the San Francisco airport after returning from a research trip to Britain with her fiancé Paul Flight. She held a valid H1B visa, but it was revoked and Ghuman returned to the United Kingdom the same day. She has been staying at her parents' home in western Wales and returned to the Bay Area in January.

After Ghuman returned to the UK, she taught her class on music in fin-de-siècle France at Mills College by video link from the University of Wales for one semester. She maintained full contact with her students during that time. She has been on an unpaid leave of absence from Mills for the past year.

During her absence Mills College wrote to the Department of State urging its office to correct the error by restoring Ghuman's visa so that she would be able to return to her teaching position. Following a Sept. 17, 2007 New York Times article on Ghuman's plight, international media attention peaked regarding her case and the lack of explanation for her visa revocation.

Media outlets such as 60 Minutes, Connect TV, the BBC, and Reuters India expressed an interest in her case. Mills College received the majority of the media requests for interviews and forwarded them to Ghuman. Senior Mills administrators also worked with academic, political, and legal officials to support Ghuman's case.

The work of an attorney from San Francisco-based law firm Jackson-Hertogs, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee's office (D-Oakland), and Mills College senior administrative staff ultimately led to a successful resolution of Ghuman's visa application in January of 2008.

Ghuman has lived in the U.S. for 10 years. She earned a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 2003 in history and literature of music. She also has a master's and bachelor's degree in music from The Queen's College, University of Oxford, and a master's degree from King's College, University of London. Her current book in progress is India in the English Musical Imagination, 1890-1940.

"The arbitrary and inexplicable exclusion of Dr. Ghuman has been a personal tragedy for her and a cause of distress to Mills and to American higher education," said Janet L. Holmgren, the President of Mills College, who called her "one of our most distinguished faculty members."

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