Please stop spreading FUD... "they’ve charged her with working outside her university and therefore the parameters of her work permit."
Simple case...

This is not FUD. I read the article and this is what I too took away from it.

I think you may have misread one part; it's immigration officials who are targeting her (per the headline and some other articles I found searching). The tax authorities are involved only because she gave lectures "to members of the Danish Parliament, Danish tax authorities and a law class at the University of Copenhagen this year and last."

+Brian Palmer thanks; fixed.

+Michael Gebetsroither - and they've charged her with that for giving an invited talk to parliament, which is part and parcel of the job of an academic. Her job itself requires disseminating research results.

+David Andersen yes? The problem seems to a lack of understanding for seperation of legislation and executive branch of the government. basically she got problems with two completely separate entities. What she should have done is get the parliament not inviting her directly but the university, then the university providing her as speaker and then the university checking the things with her work permit, and possible get a permission if it's not covered by her work permit.
If you provide talks about topics some people don't want you to give you better check your part being properly done. And a direct violation of her work permit is a really cheap goal to make for the other side.
Especially as her university should have dedicated staff for this.

+Michael Gebetsroither so you have no idea how academic invited talks work, apparently. What is your basis for your belief that following your contorted procedure would have made a difference in this case?

+David Eppstein I'm still able to read an article till the end? Please let me quote from the post you linked: "And no matter that Parliament invited Harrington to speak -- it’s facing scrutiny, too, for being unaware of laws preventing academics from speaking outside their universities without first obtaining explicit permission to do so from the Danish Agency for International Recruitment and Integration. That permission process is lengthy, by the way; Harrington said applying for a recent one-day work permit to give lecture to a political group took 15 hours."

Yes, it's idiotic to prevent academics from speaking outside university, yes it's idiotic to require a permit for this, i think we don't need to discuss this.

But that's hardly the only idiotic things a university has to follow, and on a university with a bigger amount of international employees there should be some people dedicated to such foo. Either that or people will leave.

BUT what i'm quite sure is that this is hardly news for the university department. And there always is a way. Most universities have multiple locations in a town (20-30 are not unheard of, at least here in austria).

I know those things because in the security industriy and talks about vulnerabilities you basically had this hostile environment the last 20 years, nothing new in that regard...

The rules seem reasonable and aimed at avoiding a situation whereby foreign students are preferred to locals. It is all in English on their website upfront about "guest researcher" and very specific about "sideline" activity.

It's reasonable to simultaneously require academics to publicly disseminate their knowledge, and make it illegal to do so, and the reason it's reasonable is that the rules say so? Good to know.

+Michael Gebetsroither said: Yes, it's idiotic to prevent academics from speaking outside university, yes it's idiotic to require a permit for this, i think we don't need to discuss this.

This is precisely what this post is discussing. And "idiotic" isn't strong enough: in many cases, including this one, the rules and their application are likely to ruin professional and personal lives.

The illegal act is failing to follow a process. The process requires permission in advance. That is the law of their country. Sharing the research is not itself illegal, breaking the terms of your visa & work permit is what this is about. As +Michael Gebetsroither stated above, the university should have advised her and helped her comply.

Unlike an American visiting from the US temporarily, akin to a B-1/B-2 visitor for an EU citizen visiting the US, this situation concerns work permit for a resident of that country - they should expect to be bound by its laws.

If the problem is violating the terms of her *work* permit, that might hinge on whether she was *paid* for her invited talk (which is unclear from the article). Similarly, the attention of the tax authorities might have been attracted by income from the invited talk, rather than the talk itself. That would resolve the legal paradox for me—Danish academics are required to disseminate knowledge, but forbidden to be paid for that dissemination outside the confines of their work contracts. (Of course I have no idea if that’s the actual situation.)

+James Prichard The article at least hints that this is new. ("Denmark has taken a relatively hard line against immigrants in recent years... Her case is also part of a bigger reported crackdown on foreign academics sharing their research in Denmark. Some 14 foreign researchers across Denmark's eight public universities " ) This provides evidence that her university is not simply negligent (at least as compared to other institutions), contra +Michael Gebetsroither .

From https://www.nyidanmark.dk/en-us/coming_to_dk/work/researchers.htm ,
"A researcher who is to participate in an assessment committee or function as a censor at another educational institution for a short period of time as an ordinary part of his or her employment is not required to apply for a permit for sideline employment. It is considered an ordinary part of the researcher’s employment...."

Maybe the employment contract doesn't specifically note public lectures; maybe that's a simple fix for the future, for those considering Denmark. But if the authorities are going to be rigid about applying criminal charges to any mistakes in the contract, that's useful to know.


+Jeff Erickson It's the immigration authorities who are involved here, not the tax authorities. The professor is an expert on international taxation who was invited to speak to the tax authorities on the subject.

I believe that the law would have been violated even if the work had been unpaid.

+Alok Tiwari You could be right, even though that would take the policy from merely stupid to actually insane.

+Alok Tiwari +Jeff Erickson the article specifically points out that the law against side jobs doesn't distinguish between paid and unpaid side jobs. And in its application here, it also clearly applies to short one-time things rather than regular gigs. So yes, I think "insane" is accurate. If you regularly post stories related to your work on G+, for instance, does doing that count as an unpaid side job? What about if you serve as an usher at your friend's wedding? What about if you referee for a journal? Essentially, they appear to be prohibiting becoming part of any community or doing anything with anyone other than the specific job you were hired for.

+David Eppstein yes, I thought so. But didn't want to reread the article to check.

I already added this to the corresponding post on my blog, but it should probably be here too: See (A Danish newspaper, but written in English) for a more local take on this story. According to them, Harrington's case is only a small part of this story: there are thirteen other foreign academics charged in similar and ongoing cases.