A federal appeals court has revived the challenge by scholarly and civil liberties groups to the U.S. government's denial of a visa to Tariq Ramadan, an internationally acclaimed scholar, to accept a faculty position at the University of Notre Dame.

The decision, by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, does not grant Ramadan a visa. But it orders a lower court's inquiry into the possibility that he was denied the opportunity to show consular officers that there was no legitimate reason to keep him out of the United States. And the appeals court made clear that there are good reasons to believe that is the case.