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The Aftermath:

Links from December 19, 2001 to January 31, 2002

Professor al-Arian had been on leave with pay for several months, following a deluge of complaints and threats that came after he was berated on the air by Talk Show host Bill O'Reilly. On Dec. 19, apparently after thinking about it for some time, the Board recommended that al-Arian be dismissed. The letter of intent to dismiss was sent immediately. But then, having sent the letter, the Administration seemed to feel that the issue required further study ...

And thus began perhaps the most important academic freedom and due process case in American higher education in years.

These links are in a very rough chronological order. Again, links marked with an asterisk (*) are to the LEXIS-NEXIS site: this is restricted to on-campus users and requires that the user do a search; two asterisks (**) apply to other restrictions.

WARNING ABOUT `LINK ROT': Some websites take pages down, or restrict access to them, after some time passes. So unfortunately, some of the links on these pages will be inoperative. However, most of the items can be found by searching lexis-nexis.

Here are links forward to Current Events, back to the site map, to the main Al-Arian page of this site, and to the main UFF/USF page.

They that give up
essential liberty
to obtain ... safety
deserve niether liberty
nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin


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An Autumn Before a Dark Winter
9/11/01 - 12/18/01
Next:
Second Thoughts
2/1/02 - 3/19/02
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Recommendation to Dismiss

On December 19, 2001, the Board of Trustees met in an Emergency meeting, on the status of USF computer science Professor Sami al-Arian. According to the (as yet unofficial) minutes:

Presumably, these reasons for dismissal involved Articles 5 and 16 of the the BOR-UFF Contract (in pdf) negotiated for 2001-2003 between the (now disbanded) Florida Board of Regents (of the State University System) and the United Faculty of Florida.

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Letter of Dismissal

On Dec. 19, after the Board of Trustees voted to terminate Professor Al-Arian, President Genshaft announced her intention to dismiss him. These reasons for dismissal were enumerated in:

The decision won immediate support from Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Secretary of Education Jim Horne. The Dismissal was explained to faculty:

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Media Reactions

Local media organs reported the decision to dismiss:

Opinions were divided on the dismissal: In general, the St. Petersburg Times had more to say on the issue, and was more critical of the USF administration: Meanwhile, there were a few other immediate reactions: here is a sampling. And USF/UFF President Roy Weatherford appeared on the O'Reilly Factor talk show, which featured the following exchange:
  • WEATHERFORD: Well, the real troublemakers here are the people who called up with the death threats for Dr. al-Arian and the president of the university and the staff--
  • O'REILLY: I agree with that.
Meanwhile, on Dec. 21, the American Association of University Professors Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland wrote to President Genshaft, expressing his concern and offering advice. The AAUP's general concern's about the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, are described in their page on `AAUP Speaks Out for Academic Freedom as Faculty and Students Examine the September 11 Attacks'.

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USF/USF Sends a Response to all Faculty

On Jan. 2, the Chapter sent a packet to all members of the UFF/USF bargaining unit. Here are:

This was followed by a letter from Chapter President Weatherford to USF President Judy Genshaft.

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USF Faculty Advisor Resigns

USF Anthropology Professor Elizabeth Bird, faculty advisor to the Provost, resigned as a matter of principle. The resignation is reported in:

Professor Bird wrote a letter saying that the Al-Arian Firing will Threaten us All, which she kindly has permitted us to post, describing the reasons for her resignation. Shortly afterwards, on Jan. 9, Professors Steven Johnston (a former Faculty Senator) and Michael Gibbons sent a letter to President Genshaft warning that, ` in firing Al-Arian, the Administration has surrendered to external political and financial pressures.'

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Salon.com on the `Witch Hunt'

Salon ran Bruce Shapiro's article on the `Florida Witch Hunt' on Jan. 8.

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The Faculty Senate

The Faculty Senate met on Jan. 9, and voted not to support Genshaft's dismissal, and instead to reform the faculty discipline structure.

At the meeting, Faculty Senator Nancy Tyson reported that according to the USF Police report on the death threat to Al-Arian phoned into the Department of Computer Science on Sept. 27, the caller called back approximately an hour later to apologize; this threat had been featured in administration statements on the security problem on campus.
  • Genshaft described the pressures on the university, incuding: ``we have also heard from agencies, funding agencies, who are wondering if this is the right University to send funds to ... .''
  • Provost David Stamps told the Faculty Senate that the decision to terminate Al-Arian had not been made yet.
  • Unlike the Board of Trustees, the Faculty Senate permitted Al-Arian to address the Senate via phone.
A transcript of the meeting is available from the Faculty Senate website.
  • A motion to ``fully support'' President Genshaft and the Board of Trustees was defeated.
  • A motion to create a Committee on Faculty Discipline is passed.
This meeting was reported in: Then a very strange episode: *the Dean of Medicine tried to find out how senators from the College had voted, an innocent endeavor reported in the Jan. 12 Tampa Tribune.

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A Resolution of the Chapter

A Resolution to defend Professor Al-Arian's academic freedom and due process rights was passed on Jan. 10, 11 meetings of the Membership. (The resolution also expressed support for Professor Bird's resignation as faculty advisor.) This was reported in:

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Ellen Schrecker visits

Yeshiva University History Professor Ellen Schrecker gave a lecture on ``Academic Freedom: An Historical Perspective'' on Jan. 11. Professor Schrecker is a leading authority on the Red Scare: see an interview in Summer, 2001. Her visit was sponsored by concerned USF faculty, led by UFF member Fraser Ottanelli. For more references on the McCarthy era, see American Dreams and Cultural Crackdowns: The 1950s.

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The News Spreads

Soon the story was spreading out.

And Al-Arian vowed to fight: Meanwhile, back at the tube:
  • On Jan. 13, CNN dot COM did a story on *Al-Arian's brother-in-law, which closed with Cindy Crowley signing off from in front of a visual of the WTC wreckage.
  • On Jan. 14, CNN The Point With Lisa Ling interviewed *Al-Arian and his attorney and some Hollywood people, Enron people, and Buckingham observers.
  • On Jan. 15, 2001, USF outside counsel Thomas Gonzalez and American Muslim Alliance executive director Eric Vickers disagree on whether Bill O'Reilly is to blame: O'Reilly and Vickers get in a food fight while Gonzalez says that, `the fairness of it [the current process] comes from the investigation that the president [Genshaft] conducted and the thought she put into it.'
On Jan. 14, President Genshaft held the first of what would be many meetings with groups of faculty to discuss the future of USF. Professor al-Arian repeatedly comes up.

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USF Student Reactions

On Jan. 9, the Coalition of Progressive Student Organizations had voted not to support Genshaft, as reported in the Jan. 17 Oracle story that the USF Chapter of the Graduate Assistant's Union (UFF-GAU) voted to support the USF/UFF Chapter.

  • The GAU statement read: ``We the University of South Florida Graduate Assistants United, a sister union of the USF Chapter of the United Faculty of Florida, support the USF/UFF resolution against the actions of President Genshaft and the University Board of Trustees in the termination of Professor Al-Arian.'' USF/UFF is grateful for the GAU's support.
  • The Jan. 22 Shanachie published the Letter to President Genshaft from the USF Coalition of Progressive Organizations. In it, they state: ``Our decision not to support Dr. Al-Arian's termination is not tantamount to endorsing his political views,'' and they state that ``... we will continue to support President Genshaft and Mike Griffin as our leaders ... despite any ... specific deciions that they may make.'' But they say of the Board of Trustees: ``We cannot support a board that is not part of the campus community.''
But the Student Government voted to support President Genshaft; see also the story in the St. Petersburg Times. The Feb. 18 Shanachie would report that there were actually two versions of the resolution, and that the defeated version would have supported academic freedom; the large number of abstentions played a part in the politicking, a fact that won a sharp rebuke in the Jan. 17 Oracle. Letters to the Oracle express both sides.

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The Road to Dismissal

About now came two stories on how USF had gotten where it is.

Meanwhile, Steven Emerson returned to the Tampa Bay area to criticize Al-Arian and USF faculty in his warning that Radical Islam in U.S. still a threat, speaker warns.

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Nervousness

People started becoming nervous about the long-range effects of a termination of a tenured professor.

During the week of Jan. 21 - 25, bumper stickers saying `Defend ACADEMIC FREEDOM at USF' and buttons saying `I don't SPEAK for USF' start appearing.

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Major Players Weigh In

After viewing the situation from their eyries, major media organs began to speak. And a few other media organs had something to say. And campus newspapers put their oars in:

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Breaking a deadline

So is Al-Arian going to be fired?


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spacer Previous:
An Autumn Before a Dark Winter
9/11/01 - 12/18/01
Next:
Second Thoughts
2/1/02 - 3/19/02
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Al-Arian Site Home
USF/UFF Site Home
Major Postings
The Issues
Contact Us
Site Map
An Overview of the Entire Controversy
Background: Before Sept. 11
The Year 2001 - 2002
The Year 2002 - 2003
Recent News
The year 2001 - 2002:
Fall: 9/11/01 - 12/18/01
Aftermath: 12/19/01 - 1/31/02
Second Thoughts: 2/1/02 - 3/19/02
Alarums & Excursions: 3/19/02 - 6/10/02
Summertime: 6/11/02 - 8/20/02