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Major Postings
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An Overview of the Entire Controversy
Background: Before Sept. 11
The Year 2001 - 2002
The Year 2002 - 2003
Recent News
The year 2002 - 2003:
7 Days: 8/21/02 - 8/27/02
September: 8/21/02 - 9/26/02
Looming Clouds: 9/27/02 - 11/04/02
Anticipation: 11/05/02 - 12/31/02
Transitions: 1/1/03 - 2/19/03
Indictment: 2/20/03 - 2/21/03
Termination: 2/22/03 - 2/28/03
Reverberations: 3/1/03 - 3/19/03
A Greater Circle: 3/20/03 - 3/28/03
Recent News: 3/29/03 -
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Anticipation

Links from November 5 to December 31, 2002

For decades, the relationship between USF faculty and the USF Administration had been regulated by a contract. But the USF Administration insisted that the reorganization prevented them from agreeing to extend the contract, and also from recognizing the union. This was the contract which UFF contended that the university was violating in its treatment of Al-Arian. And now things were coming to a head.

USF had sued Al-Arian, asking for a declaratory ruling that its proposed letter of termination did not violate Al-Arian's First Amendment rights. In December, a federal court dismissed the suit, leaving the Administration with the choice of appealing or ... doing something else. Meanwhile, everyone prepared for Jan. 7, when the reorganization had been supposed to be finalized, and when USF insisted that the contract expired.

These links are in a very rough chronological order, and will be updated as events develop. 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 back to the site map, to the main Al-Arian page of this site, and to the main UFF/USF page.

Either
the law exists
or
it does not.

- Andre Norton


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spacer Previous:
Looming
9/26/02 - 11/4/02
Next:
Transitions
1/1/03 - 2/19/03
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The First Monday after the First Tuesday of November

Nov. 5, 2002, was an election day. Several contests had some bearing on Al-Arian's case, and on the position of UFF:

  • The gubernatorial campaign between incumbent Republican Jeb Bush, Democrat Bill McBride, and independent Robert Kunst. Bush had a history of anti-union rhetoric and actions, and had supported the dismissal of Al-Arian; he was regarded as a very strong candidate. McBride had been supported from the beginning by the Florida Education Association, which saw him as the most electable Democratic candidate; McBride had remained silent on Al-Arian. Kunst was a marginal candidate. Bush won with 56.2 % of the vote versus McBride's 43.0 %, with Kunst getting 0.8 %.
  • The race for attorney-general is important because of the numerous legal issues that can appear in any collision between union and management. The race was between Republican Education Commissioner Charlie Crist, and Democrat State Senator Buddy Dyer. Crist had played a part in the reorganization of the Florida State University System, and had expressed his skepticism of academic freedom. Dyer was seen as more reliable by the FEA, especially when it came to dealing with retirement problems. Crist won with 53.5 % of the vote.
  • U.S. Senator Bob Graham had been very critical of the reorganization of the Florida SUS, and had launched a referendum to insulate the Florida public universities from Tallahassee politics. The result was Amendment # 11, inspired by the governance system in North Carolina. This referendum would add to Florida Constitutional Article IX a Section 7, which recreates the State University System (SUS), with a single Board of Governors overseeing the SUS, and a Boards of Trustees for each university. Fourteen of the 17 governors would be appointed by the Governor for staggered terms, the other three being the Commissioner of Education, and a faculty member and a student selected by their respective constituencies. The Board of Governors would have considerable authority for making policy and controlling the budget. Each Board of Trustees would have thirteen members, six appointed by the Governor for staggered terms, five chosen by the Board of Governors, with the Faculty Senate and Student Government presidents. The Amendment passed with 60.2 % of the votes cast.
See the stories on Amendment # 11 in the Nov. 6
Chronicle of Higher Education, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Tampa Tribune.

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Support from Colleagues out West

On Nov. 15, the Faculty Senate of the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute adopted a Resolution by the Albuquerque TVI Faculty Senate in Support of the Faculty at the University of South Florida in Tampa resolving ``that the Faculty Senate of the Albuquerque Technical Vocational Institute in New Mexico, as proud citizens of the United States, join in solidarity with the faculty organizations of the University of South Florida in Tampa in their work for preservation of academic freedom, due process, the just rule of law, and our proud American heritage of free expression as guaranteed by the Constitution of United States of America and its Amendments.'' At the same meeting the Senate approved a Statement in Support of Due Process, Academic Freedom and Responsibility.

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Miscellany

As of Nov. 11, this web-site was still # 3 out of ``about 6,880'' on ``al-arian,'' (where it has been fairly steadily for several months) but also # 178 out of ``about 176,000'' on ``academic freedom.''

On Nov. 17, the Tampa Tribune ran a column by SUNY-Buffalo Professor Emeritus of Sociology Lionel S. Lewis, who wondered what the late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes would have made of Al-Arian Vs. USF: Probing A Great Legal Mind. Professor Lewis contended that Holmes stood in the center of the liberal tradition of American jurisprudence, and that he was a strong defender of civil liberties. Nevertheless, Lewis notes that in *Schenck v. United States (1919), that Holmes argued in his unanimously supported opinion that ``The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic'' and thus that during wartime, someone can be locked up for handing out pamphlets that stridently condemn the war and call on young men to resist the draft. Lewis did not mention that Holmes's somewhat mixed record on civil rights and liberties has led some observers to wonder exactly how ``liberal'' Mr. Holmes was (see, e.g., H.L. Mencken's Mr. Justice Holmes in the the May 1930 Mercury). (And the act upheld, the Espionage Act, has made a number of civil libertarians wonder about President Wilson ...)
  • On Nov. 18, the USF Oracle covered the Nov. 2 AAUP Press release: AAUP says USF court case will have no effect. USF Spokesman Michael Riech said that the USF Administration is currently concerned with Al-Arian's constitutional rights, not with the AAUP's concerns, even though the AAUP is prominently mentioned in the lawsuit against Al-Arian. USF General Counsel R. B. Friedlander said that the lawsuit could last into 2003 or 2004.
  • On Nov. 19, the USF Oracle editorialized, Take censure most seriously, in which the editors say that ``Genshaft should be as concerned with the possibility of a censure as she has been with kicking the Al-Arian case around for more than a year.''

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The Lawsuit is Federal

On Nov. 18, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bucklew agreed with Al-Arian's lawyer that as the USF lawsuit against Al-Arian asks for a ruling on federal (First Amendment) constitutional issues, it should be heard in federal court. Bucklew will hear Al-Arian's motion to dismiss the case on Dec. 6.

  • The Nov. 20 AP reported that Lawsuit against professor to stay in federal court which the St. Petersburg Times ran.
  • The Nov. 20 USF Oracle reported that Al-Arian case moves to Federal court, and quoted from the decision: ``It appears from the complaint that the Court will be unable to resolve the issues in the Plaintiff's complaint without addressing the Defendant's potential First Amendment claim, a claim that would unquestionably fall within this Court's federal question jurisdiction.'' Incidentally, it was the plaintiff (ie, the USF Administration) that brought up the First Amendment in this case.
  • The Nov. 20 Tampa Tribune reported that Al-Arian To Get Hearing In Federal Court. Al-Arian's attorney and one of USF's attorney agreed that this was not a big deal, but Bruce Jacob, a former dean at Stetson University's law school, said that: ``Federal judges are ... more independent ... . [If] a state judge ... hands down a decision that upholds Al-Arian and goes against USF, [he] might face public outrage. If I were USF, I would want to go where you knew the judge was going to be under a lot of pressure.''
Some of the legal documents are available from the FSU Law School site on the lawsuit.

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Wolf at the Door

Once again, a reminder that the dispute over Al-Arian is but one facet of the dispute over the contract which protects Al-Arian's rights. If the contract between USF faculty and the (agent of) the State of Florida expires on Jan. 7, 2003, what will replace it? The first concrete indication was a proposal for a revision of section 6C-10 (on personnel) of the USF Rules: the proposed revisions extend the rules into areas historically covered by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), even though the CBA is supposed to preempt all rules. UFF is very protective of the contract ...

  • Copies of the rules could be obtained from the General Counsel's Office, and as a result, there were rumors floating around all October. Nevertheless, niether UFF nor the Faculty Senate were ever informed (much less asked for input). An electronic draft was given to a senior faculty member in mid-November.
  • The UFF responded on Nov. 18 by issuing a press release condemning both the rules and the process by which they were developed, and announcing a press conference on Nov. 19.
Even before the press conference, the press got interested.
  • The Nov. 19 USF Oracle reported that UFF concerned as trustees' decision looms. UFF/USF Chapter President Weatherford is quoted saying, ``Evidently, the board is charging ahead with the assumption that (the faculty will be) governed by rules instead of a contract.'' USF Spokesman Michael Reich is quoted: ``...the university fully hopes and expects we will have an amicable collective bargaining process.''
  • The Nov. 19 Tampa Tribune reported that USF Faculty Worry Trustees Will Weaken Worker Rights Weatherford is quoted saying, ``...if this is a clear sign that they intend to break the contract, then everything that is guaranteed by that contract is legally at risk.'' To Weatherford's suggestion that USF agree that the contract be extended (so that the immediate need for any new rules is reduced), USF Board of Trustees chair Dick Beard said, ``We're not going to do anything like that.''
On Nov. 19, Weatherford delivered a letter to USF President Judy Genshaft asking to start collective bargaining, and held a press conference in front of the Allen Administration building.
  • The Nov. 20 USF Oracle reported that UFF has Grave Concerns, and quoted Weatherford saying, ``It now appears that this managerial reorganization will be used against the faculty. It seems to be their intention to break the collective bargaining agreement ...,'' and ``The board apparently wants us to be less like Harvard and more like Wal-Mart.'' USF Spokesman Michael Reich said that the new rules were only supposed to last 90 days until a new contract could be negotiated, saying, ``The board's intentions are to do what's in the best interest of the university, to support the research, teaching and service missions of the university.''
On Nov. 20, the new rules were the leading topic in the Faculty Senate meeting. Provost David Stamps and other senior administrators presented the USF Administration's point of view.
  • USF General Counsel R. B. Friedlander said that as of Jan. 7, under the School Code, the Board of Trustees becomes the employer of USF faculty. She said that the old personnel rules will no longer be enforceable, so new rules are necessary, and that it the process of generating the new rules were the responsibility of her office. She said that on September 5, her office sent notices to 98 interested parties (including AFSCME, but not including UFF or the Faculty Senate), and sent out another notice on Nov. 14: hence her office followed the law. Successive drafts were developed after receiving input from administrators and trustees.
    spacer When asked if it might just be simpler for UFF and the Board to agree to extend the contract (as UFF is willing), Friedlander said that because the Board does not have the authority to declare itself the successor employer (i.e., that in becoming the employer of USF faculty the Board assumes all the rights and obligations that the prior employer --- the Florida Board of Education --- had), that the Board therefore could not commit to extending the contract.
  • USF Vice Provost Phil Smith said that both the contract and major components of the State Rules both expire on Jan. 7, 2003, and therefore new personnel rules are required. He said that the issue between the Board of Trustees and UFF is whether the Board of Trustees will be the successor employer, and that that question is now before the Public Employee's Relations Commission. Smith also asserted that the language in the new rules for academic freedom had been lifted from the contract, while the language for misconduct had been so vague as to require definition, and thus new language had been added. He also said that some of the language was different from that in the contract because the contract reflected ``compromises'' made in the negotiating process.
    spacer When a senator observed that the contractual language (in Section 5.1) that An employee engaged in such activities shall be free to cultivate a spirit of inquiry and scholarly criticism and to examine ideas in an atmosphere of freedom and confidence had effectively been replaced by (in proposed Rule 6C-4-10.109 (1)(a .doc file) by an extended statement of faculty responsibilities, Smith asserted that the essence of the contractual language was present in the proposed rule, an apparent reference to: Faculty must be free to ... [c]ultivate a spirit of inquiry and scholarly criticism, and present and examine their own academic subjects and ideas frankly and forthrightly, with freedom and confidence without fear of censorship (bolds added).
  • Associate Vice President Trudie Frecker reiterated the ephemerality of the proposed rules, saying that there will be feedback hearings, committees, etc., to work on permanent rules: work on permanent rules would start by January, but effective immediately, feedback on the rules would be read by her office if sent to cfsurvey@admin.usf.edu.
After the Provost and associates had made their presentations, USF/UFF Chapter President Roy Weatherford made a strong statement in which he asserted:
  • That the Board of Trustees could agree to extend the life of the current contract if they want to. He noted that Board of Trustees Chairman Richard Beard was quoted saying that the Board would not agree to recognize UFF as the bargaining agent and, in effect, that the Board would not agree to extend the contract.
  • That if the Board succeeds in having the contract expire on Jan. 7, they will have greatly strengthened their position in subsequent negotiations. He strongly stated that that was a major motivation in refusing to extend the contract, and in proposing rules inconsistent with the contract.
  • He concluded by stating that the reassurances of the USF Administration were insincere, stating, ``They're deceiving us, they're lying to us, and they're trying to screw us.''
After quickly agreeing to ask USF President Genshaft to replace USF Board of Trustee member Patrick Swygert (who has resigned) with USF Faculty Senate President Gregory Paveza (who would be on the Board anyway by Amendment # 11), the Senate had a more difficult time with A resolution requesting that USF administration postpone its decision to seek BOT approval of new rules affecting faculty conditions of employment. The Senate was divided between two positions:
  • Those that supported the amendment said that the Senate cannot remain silent on this issue.
  • Those that opposed it said that if the USF Administration refused to extend the contract, the Board would only consider a different alternative to the proposed rules, and there was less than 24 hours to compose such an alternative.
Perhaps unhappy about being presented with a fait accompli, the Senate passed the motion.
spacer The story dominated that Nov. 21 USF Oracle.
  • The lead story was 'They're going to screw us' Union president warns forthcoming rule changes could mean 25 years of bargaining down the drain. The Oracle quoted Friedlander saying, ``If we don't have rules in place, we don't have the authority to do any of the positive things as well as what some people would perceive as the negative things.''
  • The accompanying analysis was Who knows what will happen next, in which the writer said that many senators wondered why the precise language of the contract could not have been used for the rules, many wondered why the rules had to be rushed into place, and why they weren't consulted.
  • Then there was an editorial, USF is failing academics, which laid the blame at USF President Genshaft's feet, complaining that the controversy seems to be Beard v. Weatherford, and that Genshaft ``has made it quite clear that she prefers to stay barricaded in her office.''
The USF Board of Trustees met on Nov. 21, and passed the rules unanimously.
  • At the beginning of the meeting, USF Faculty President Greg Paveza presented the Senate Resolution on the rules to the Board and asked the Board to postpone action on the rules so that faculty could be consulted on them. ``My concern is not around the fact that these rules and rule changes are needed, because they clearly are, but rather because of the lack of faculty involvement.''
  • USF/UFF Membership co-chair Sherman Dorn, standing in for Roy Weatherford, said that adopting these rules could constitute a violation of the contract, and that there were serious differences between the language of the proposed rules and that of the contract, and he handed out a table of discrepancies.
  • In subsequent discussion, Trustee John Ramil asked if the new rules would put USF at a disadvantage in recruitment, and Friedlander assured him that they would not. Friedlander also reiterated that the process of composing the new rules had been consistent with Florida State Law.
Afterwards, Dorn said to reporters: ``I am disappointed that the Board of Trustees has voted for these rules against the clear wishes of faculty.'' One curious sideline: while the Florida Sunshine Law requires that Board meetings be in public, it turns out that a substantial part of the debate consisted of Friedlander ferrying messages from member to member. This turned up because a draft of the rules contained a non-discrimination (based on sexual orientation) clause: because of concerns from some trustee(s), this language was removed during the composition process. Video clips of the meeting are available on the Netcast page of the Nov. 21 BOT meeting.
spacer On Nov. 22, the USF Oracle reported that BOT votes to change faculty rules, reporting that Board Chairman Richard Beard said that the rules were necessary to operate the university in the absence of a contract. However, the Times and the Tribune found the new rules, the strategic plan, and other major initiatives less newsworthy than a recommendation presented to the Board that USF President Genshaft get a substantial pay raise: However, the Nov. 27 Weekly Planet reported in a story entitled Absent-minded of Professors: USF's faculty union is uneasy about rule changes that Sherman Dorn warned at the Board of Trustees meeting that the proposed rules may permit the USF Administration to fire any tenured professor arbitrarily, and remarked that ``If you [the Board of Trustees] can make personnel rules today, you can recognize the UFF as the bargaining agent today,'' to which Friedlander responded, ``We don't have the legal authority to do that,'' adding ``They say they have majority support, but they have to prove it.''

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Various

Back at the front ...

  • On Nov. 21, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that ``FBI seeks Israeli help in prosecuting Islamic Jihad men.'' The story was picked up in the Nov. 25 Tampa Tribune, which reported that FBI Follows Tampa Case To Israel. Since the article mentioned Palestinian Islamic Jihad without mentioning Al-Arian, the Tampa Tribune reminded readers that on Nov. 21, in the story ``Ashcroft Defends New Wiretap Powers,'' USF Attorney General John Ashcroft responded to a question about interim US Attorney Mac Cauley's February statement that Al-Arian was the subject of a ``active and ongoing investigation'' FBI investigation, by saying that it ``was true and is true.''
  • On Saturday, Dec. 14, Al-Arian spoke at a rally covered by AP, which reported (via the Gainesville Sun) that Muslims say they've been under attack in Florida. His case was one of the examples listed of recent hostility actions towards Muslims.

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Case Dismissed

On Thursday, Dec. 12, Al-Arian's attorney Robert McKee and USF's external counsel Bruce Rogow argued before U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bucklew over whether the court should throw out USF's lawsuit against Al-Arian. The lawyers argued over whether the U.S. court should rule on whether the letter of termination violates Al-Arian's First Amendment rights; both sides seemed to believe that such a ruling in USF's favor would compromise Al-Arian's ability to subsequently sue USF for such a violation.

Then on Monday, Dec. 16, Judge Bucklew dismissed USF's suit against Al-Arian, ruling that:
  • The court should hear the case only if USF has no alternative route for relief. Then the court noted that there were alternatives.
  • The court should hear the case only if a declaratory judgement would resolve the issues brought to the court. Then the court noted that a declaratory ruling would not resolve the issues. (In particular, the court could not help USF with the AAUP.)
  • Since Al-Arian is accused of violating the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the appropriate route if USF fires Al-Arian is to go through the grievance process. In particular, ``A party to a contract may generally not turn to litigation to circumvent the arbitration clause of the contract.''
Some of the legal documents are available from the FSU Law School site on the lawsuit.
spacer The media had been waiting for this story.
  • The Dec. 16 AP reported (via The Ledger) that Federal Judge Rejects USF Professor Lawsuit, and quoted Al-Arian's attorney Robert McKee saying, ``The ball's in their court ... If USF is, as they represented to the court, uncertain whether firing Dr. Al-Arian violates his constitutional rights, then we suggest they shouldn't fire him.''
  • The Dec. 16 UPI reported that *Judge declines to hear university case, and quoted Judge Bucklew saying, ``This court finds that a declaratory judgment in this case would not be a wise and practical use of judicial resources.'' Defending the use of a lawsuit to deal with a First Amendment issue, USF external counsel Bruce Rogow said, ``This is different. This is the most sensitive area of the law, the most sensitive area of constitutional law.''
  • The Dec. 17 Agence France Presse reported that *US judge dismisses lawsuit against Palestinian professor, and quoted Al-Arian's attorney Robert McKee saying, ``What is significant here is that the university itself has admitted in open court that it really doesn't have a case.''
  • The Dec. 17 Chronicle of Higher Education reported that **Federal Judge Declines to Rule on University's Plan to Fire Professor It Accuses of Terrorism, and quoted UFF Chapter President Roy Weatherford saying, ``We're back where we started a couple hundred thousand dollars ago,'' and noted Weatherford's comment that UFF is not defending Al-Arian: UFF is defending Al-Arian's contractual rights.
  • The Dec. 17 St. Petersburg Times reported that Judge: Don't ask advice on Al-Arian; USF asked if firing the professor would violate his rights. A judge says giving advice isn't the court's job. USF Spokesman Michael Riech said, ``We do not believe that terminating him would violate his rights, but this was an effort to make absolutely sure,'' and that he did not know how long it would take the USF Administration to decide what to do next.
  • The Dec. 17 Tampa Tribune reported that Judge Tosses USF Suit Against Al-Arian, and quoted BOT Chairman Dick Beard on AL-Arian returning to the classroom: ``I'm not even sure that's an option ... It's not an option in my view.'' They also quoted Al-Arian saying, ``Today's ruling confirms our deep conviction that the system does work for the little guy.''
After the ruling, the USF Administration weighed its options as Al-Arian's attorney called on USF to abandon its attempt to fire Al-Arian.
  • The Dec. 18 St. Petersburg Times reported that Al-Arian vows to fight until he wins: If USF fires him, the tenured computer science professor might keep his appeal alive for a year or more. The Times quoted Al-Arian saying, ``Nobody is going to force me to leave because somehow they don't like me or like my politics,'' and mentioned that no one seems to know what effect the Jan. 7 transition will have on the case. The Times also ran an editorial on USF's judicial rebuff, claiming that the lawsuit had ``revealed her [Genshaft's] own misgivings about the case,'' contending that ``If Genshaft believed her own party line ... then ... [she] simply would have fired Al-Arian and trusted the outcome to the courts.''
  • The Dec. 18 Tampa Tribune reported that Al-Arian Pressures USF To Back Down, quoting Al-Arian attorney McKee saying that if USF appeals, it would show ``... disrespect to the taxpayers. These hundreds of thousands of dollars could be better put to use for scholarships or research projects, or even to help pay for President Genshaft's pay increase.'' The Tribune also quoted BOT Chair Beard saying, ``It's not a matter of money. It's a matter of what this guy's been doing to the university.''
Then came a lot of opinions, many involving the juxtaposition of USF's legal problems with Genshaft's pay raise.
  • On Dec. 19, St. Petersburg Times columnist Mary Jo Melone wrote in her column USF president's new contract: an outrageous fortune, indeed that ``Genshaft is being rewarded for threatening academic freedom and for failing to make hard decisions in the case of professor Sami Al-Arian.''
  • On Dec. 20, the Tampa Tribune editorialized that *USF Should Now Drop The Hammer On Al-Arian, stating that despited Al-Arian's claims to innocence and the fact that Al-Arian has not been charged with any crime, ``...he has not been cleared, and early this year federal authorities acknowledged that an investigation of his activities is ongoing.''
  • On Dec. 23, St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler wrote that Maybe now is the time to reassess Judy Genshaft's score card, and suggested that Genshaft's problem was that she was serving on a sequence of one-year contracts, and that nos that she is going on a five-year contract, she will be able to act more decisively: ``The yardstick is not how her predecessor Betty Castor (a hardened insider in Florida politics) would have fared, but how any other newcomer would have fared in her place.''
On Dec. 29, Lionel Lewis, whom we last heard describing Justice Holmes as a liberal, published in the St. Petersburg Times a column Beyond dissent: the limits of faculty freedom describing the magazine Inquiry, published by Al-Arian's Islamic Committee for Palestine in the early 1990s. He quotes several passages (example: `put ``U.S. warmongers on trial for one of the most barbaric, genocidal wars ever waged, ... the imperialist (and) bloody Gulf War.''') and some ferocious poetry (that Al-Arian did not write). For such language, Lewis proposes ``in propagating the culture of terrorism in the pages of INQUIRY ..., Al-Arian has ... forfeited his right to a permanent academic appointment.''

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The Contract

The administrations of Florida's public universities have been preparing for the transition on Jan. 7, 2003, when the Boards of Trustees were to assume full authority over the universities. But the passage of Amendment # 11 raises several questions.

  • There is a new question: On Jan. 7, who will will be the employer of the faculty and staff of the universities: the local Boards of Trustees, or the Board of Governors? Who has the power to sign contracts?
  • This led to an old question: Is the new employer bound by the obligations assumed by the old Board of Regents (and subsequently by the Board of Education)? Specifically, did the new employer have to negotiate with the union? (The technical phrase is: ``successor employer.'' If a new employer takes over a longstanding operation, the general view is that this new employer succeeds the old employer, and is thus bound by the same collective bargaining requirements that the old one was bound by.)
The university administrations and the unions disagreed on these questions.
  • The administration of USF argued that it could not negotiate a contract with faculty, nor make any commitments or even exploratory steps towards a contract with employees before Jan. 7. (This did not prevent several boards -- including USF's -- from preparing a lucrative contracts for their presidents.) The USF Board of Trustees also said that it did not know if it was the successor employer, and would await a decision on the issue by the Public Employees Relations Commission.
  • The United Faculty of Florida argued that just as university boards were working on contracts for presidents, they could certainly work on a contract with the union. All it would require is a commmitment to recognize the union and commit to collective bargaining as of Jan. 7. The union also suggested that the administration's refusal to recognize the union was part of a legal ploy: if the administration could establish that the Board of Trustees was never bound by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, then in subsequent negotiations, the Board could force negotiations into impasse and then (under one interpretation of the law) impose whatever contract they liked.
As Jan. 7 approached, tensions and tempers rose as the universities prepared for the contract to disappear, while the unions fought to prepare their contracts. (Yes, ``unions'' plural: the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which represented staff, was also in the fray.) Meanwhile, the Public Employees Relations Commission (PERC) avoided the issue by saying --- twice --- that it was too early to make such decisions (in Fall, 2002).
  • The Dec. 20 Tallahassee Democrat reported that AFSCME sues over campus contracts, and that the AFSCME lawsuit says that the new Board of Governors will be ultimately responsible for employee contracts, so in trying to eliminate the contracts, ``Should the boards of trustees and board of education continue to move forward in this unlawful, unconstitutional manner, it would be the biggest waste of resources ... It will all be for naught and it will all be undone.'' UFF has joined the suit.
  • On Dec. 23, the Governor's Office announced that Governor Bush Appoints Florida Board Of Governors. Bush was to appoint 14 of the 17 governors. Of the fourteen new appointees, eight are businesspeople, three are attorneys, one is a financial trustee, one is an academic administrator, and one is a physician. As AP observed on Dec. 24 in Gov. Bush appoints 14 to university board, most of the appointees were from the local Boards of Trustees.
On Dec. 23, Weatherford held a press conference. The issue was a direct if technical attack on the union leadership. Many years ago, the union had won the the right to have some faculty be assigned time to work on union duties. In effect, a faculty member would be given a ``course relief,'' and teach one less course, and instead work on some union work (e.g., helping faculty grievants with their cases). This is not a hot issue for most faculty, but it does reflect the reality that some union positions are time-consuming. In addition, as there are only 34 course reliefs in the entire university system, the primary effect of eliminating the practice would be to hobble the union, while making a personal attack on the union leadership.
  • On Dec. 18, USF Vice Provost Phil Smith informed UFF that USF would discontinue the practice, stating that ``...we have been informed that section 447.501(1)(e), Florida Statutes, prevents the University from granting release time for union activity after the current collective bargaining agreement expires. This is because after the contract expires, there will be no certified bargaining agent acting on behalf of the faculty.'' Notice the explicit refusal to recognize UFF as the faculty union: this rationale could be used in many other issues as well.
  • On Dec. 24, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Union assails USF over ending contract: The faculty union says the pact that USF has decided to stop honoring Jan. 7 is valid until the academic year ends. Addressing the rationale that USF is acting because, in the Administration's opinion, UFF will not represent the faculty, Weatherford said, ``This is not the way things work in labor law ... People don't lose their rights, their protection, just because the employer refuses to negotiate.''


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Looming
9/26/02 - 11/4/02
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Transitions
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Major Postings
The Issues
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Site Map
An Overview of the Entire Controversy
Background: Before Sept. 11
The Year 2001 - 2002
The Year 2002 - 2003
Recent News
The year 2002 - 2003:
7 Days: 8/21/02 - 8/27/02
September: 8/21/02 - 9/26/02
Looming Clouds: 9/26/02 - 11/04/02
Anticipation: 11/05/02 - 12/31/02
Transitions: 1/1/03 - 2/19/03
Indictment: 2/20/03 - 2/21/03
Termination: 2/22/03 - 2/28/03
Reverberations: 3/1/03 - 3/19/03
A Greater Circle: 3/20/03 - 3/28/03
Recent News: 3/29/03 -
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