U. of South Florida Accuses Professor of Links to Terrorism and Asks Court to Approve Plan to Fire Him By SHARON WALSH
The Board of Trustees of the University of South Florida on Wednesday accused Sami Al-Arian, a tenured professor who is an outspoken defender of the Palestinian cause, of terrorism and asked a Florida court to rule on whether firing him would violate his constitutional rights.
Mr. Al-Arian has been investigated by federal prosecutors and university officials, but has never been charged with a crime.
The move by the board, which voted last December to recommend the firing of Mr. Al-Arian, stunned the university's faculty members, who had been expecting the university's president, Judy L. Genshaft, to announce that he had been terminated. Ms. Genshaft had announced her intention to do so in December, but the university delayed firing the professor following an outcry from academic organizations and leaders, who said that the decision would be a blow to academic freedom. The American Association of University Professors had said that it would censure the university if it fired Mr. Al-Arian. (See an article from The Chronicle, February 8.)
Ms. Genshaft's announcement of the board's decision to sue Mr. Al-Arian in state court, as a means of obtaining the ruling, not only took faculty members at South Florida and elsewhere by surprise; it also frightened some to think that a faculty member who had not yet been fired would have to defend himself in court.
"I've been active in defending academic freedom for 28 years, and I've never heard of a university suing a professor for something like this," said Roy Weatherford, president of the South Florida chapter of United Faculty of Florida and a philosophy professor at the university.
Just settling the question of whether firing Mr. Al-Arian violates his constitutional rights will not settle the question of the professor's contractual rights or his academic freedom, he said. And a court battle will force Mr. Al-Arian to spend huge sums of money defending himself, which would bankrupt many professors, Mr. Weatherford said.
Robert McKee, Mr. Al-Arian's lawyer, said in a statement on Wednesday that he and his client were disappointed but not surprised by the board's decision. "These 'new' charges ... are without merit," the statement said. "We are confident that we will prevail in the grievance we will file, with the assistance and support of the United Faculty of Florida, if and when the termination is carried out."
"This is an issue of the ability of a professor to speak his mind without being threatened because of his political views," Mr. Al-Arian told the Associated Press. "It's still a case of academic freedom." Mr. Al-Arian could not be reached by telephone for further comment, but he and his lawyer plan to hold a news conference outlining their views today.
Mr. Al-Arian, who would be the first academic to be fired since September 11 because of something he said, is a Palestinian refugee who was born in Kuwait in 1958. He has been in the United States since 1975 and has been at South Florida, where he is a tenured professor of computer science, for 16 years. He has been on paid leave since January.
His recent troubles began last September, following an appearance he made on The O'Reilly Factor, a national television talk show. The program's host, Bill O'Reilly, accused Mr. Al-Arian of associating with terrorists and quoted a speech he gave in Arabic more than 10 years ago in which he said "death to Israel." Mr. Al-Arian has since said that he meant death to the Israeli occupation, not death to Jews, and that he would never support the killing of innocent civilians. He has made speeches in the area of Tampa, Fla., condemning the acts of September 11.
But a torrent of criticism was unleashed in Tampa following his television appearance. The university received vitriolic messages and telephone calls about Mr. Al-Arian, and one caller threatened to kill him -- a threat that was retracted that same day. Many alumni complained, and Ms. Genshaft said she received questions from national organizations that make grants to colleges questioning Mr. Al-Arian's presence at the university.
Ms. Genshaft had contended this year that, while she was concerned about academic freedom, her first concern was the disruption of the campus and the safety of the students and faculty members. The board's discussions in December of dismissing Mr. Al-Arian stopped short of accusing him of supporting terrorism. However, Ms. Genshaft said in a statement on Wednesday that she believes that Mr. Al-Arian "has abused his position at the university and is using academic freedom as a shield to cover improper activities."
After reading the statement, Ms. Genshaft declined to answer questions, referring them to the university's lawyers.
Richard Beard, chairman of the university's Board of Trustees, said he believes that Mr. Al-Arian has been associated with terrorists for many years. "It's time we take action and effectively cut this cancer out," he said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The university's court filings against Mr. Al-Arian include as reasons for his termination his "support of the entry of terrorists into the United States," "fund raising for a terrorist organization," and activities "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action."
In the mid-1990s, a federal grand jury for more than two years looked into his ties to two organizations: the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, a group that was formed to establish a dialogue between Western and Muslim intellectuals; and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, which Mr. Al-Arian says was founded to represent the Palestinian cause in the United States. No charges were ever filed, and in a separate inquiry, the university's lawyer found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Al-Arian.
In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, no supporting evidence of terrorist activities was offered, and university officials declined to release any. However, court documents do say that new information has become available since the earlier investigations.
William W. Van Alstyne, a professor of law at Duke University and noted First Amendment expert who is chairman of the AAUP committee that investigated the case, said that he was disappointed, both personally and for higher education, by the decision. The complaint, he said, "alleges nothing about Mr. Al-Arian's misuse of his position as a professor." That the complaint makes factual allegations about criminal activities, he said, is "uniquely inappropriate and totally gratuitous."
One reason cited by South Florida for its lawsuit was the likelihood that the AAUP would censure the institution if Mr. Al-Arian were fired. South Florida wants to protect itself from that action, which is taken seriously by academics and would damage the reputation of the growing university, potentially making it difficult for it to hire top-notch professors.
But legal experts pointed out Wednesday that the court's ruling will in no way affect what the AAUP will ultimately decide concerning censure. That, they said, will be based on the group's own theory of academic due process, which recommends that a committee of faculty members should first decide whether the actions of another professor warrant dismissal. The university has acted without consultation with faculty members, they said. In fact, after the decision by university officials to terminate Mr. Al-Arian, the Faculty Senate voted overwhelmingly not to support that decision.
"We've respected her desire to move carefully in this case," Mary Burgan, general secretary of the AAUP, said of Ms. Genshaft's decision. "But the strategy of avoiding the issue by suing a professor before he's even fired ... is astonishing and very ominous." She said that the AAUP would probably file a brief on behalf of the professor.
Some faculty members questioned whether the university was trying to pass the responsibility on to the court and thus dodge criticism that it is not supporting academic freedom.
"No," said Thomas M. Gonzalez, a lawyer for the university. "We're not trying to pass the buck. We're trying to address the concerns of the faculty and those outside the university. ... We want to know whether academic freedom has the force of law and whether it protects the same conduct as the First Amendment," he said.