1. The Firing of Sami Al-Arian

Academic freedom in America suffered a serious blow after Sept. 11. Death threats, denunciations of faculty by trustees and politicians, and suspensions by administrators all restricted the ability of faculty and students across the country to speak freely.

There is perhaps no better example of how academic freedom was restricted than Sami Al-Arian, a computer science professor at the University of South Florida (USF), who was summarily fired on Dec. 19, 2001. Al-Arian’s dismissal marks one of the most grotesque violations of academic freedom in recent memory; Mary Burgan, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors could not recall a similar case in the past decade. Indeed, this is probably the first time that a tenured professor has ever been fired for receiving a death threat.

Worst of all, USF administrators and trustees claimed that they were defending academic freedom while they tossed out Al-Arian. In a university, the only thing worse than an opponent of academic freedom is a hypocritical and dishonest enemy of academic freedom. If the claims of USF administrators are not firmly refuted, the concept of academic freedom may be severely weakened.

Al-Arian’s trouble began on Sept. 26, 2001, when he appeared the Fox News Channel show, “The O’Reilly Factor” to discuss the Muslim community’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks. During the show, Bill O’Reilly criticized Al-Arian’s alleged past links to Palestinian terrorists.

The next day, Al-Arian received dozens of threats and hate messages that would be used by USF as the primary excuse to fire him. Yet at the time that Genshaft announced plans to fire Al-Arian, the university had not received a threat of any kind for seven weeks. Out of all the threats reported by USF, only three actually mentioned bodily harm to Al-Arian (no one else was ever threatened), and the Hillsborough County state attorney's office did not find that any of the messages amounted to a death threat that could be prosecuted. The most serious threat came the day after the O’Reilly interview, when someone called for Al-Arian and declared, "I'm going to come and kill him." USF evacuated the engineering building, although the caller called 25 minutes later to apologize and say, "I just called a minute ago, and I was very upset. I was out of line and said some things that I shouldn't have said." Death threats are a serious matter, but numerous faculty around the country have received death threats (or have been attacked), and not one has ever been fired for it before.

USF officials claimed that merely receiving the death threats because of a public comment justified Al-Arian’s dismissal. According to President Genshaft, "He violated the collective-bargaining agreement: His outside activities adversely affected the university.” Genshaft told the media that Al-Arian’s activities have adversely affected USF, citing "whatever he has been doing outside for a long time. For speaking activities." Genshaft pointed to his appearances on talk shows and a recent speech to Amnesty International. This explicit admission that Al-Arian is being fired for his speaking activities on matters of public concern virtually assures USF of losing any lawsuit that will be brought on the matter.

The Collective Bargaining agreement cited by USF as grounds for Al-Arian’s dismissal declares that “Academic freedom is accompanied by the corresponding responsibility” to “indicate when appropriate that one is not an institutional representative unless specifically authorized as such” and “contribute to the orderly and effective functioning of the employee's academic unit (program, department, school, and/or college) and/or the university.”

A clause demanding “responsibility” cannot give a university the power to fire professors, particularly on such vague and arbitrary grounds as “orderly and effective functioning” of the university. By this standard, a tenured professor with a messy office who misplaces a form could be fired for making the university less orderly and effective. Academic freedom under the USF contract creates a moral, but not a legal, duty upon professors to act responsibly.

If the contract could be interpreted to compel an enforceable responsibility, then it would be in violation of the First Amendment when applied to a professor’s speeches on matters of public concern, which the Supreme Court has ruled is clearly protected for all public employees, and particularly university professors.

Second, USF officials accused Al-Arian of failing to renounce the idea that he might be speaking for the university. USF’s claim that Al-Arian can be fired for failing to declare that his views do not represent the university must also be rejected. Compelling speech is as much a violation of the First Amendment as censoring it. Forcing all professors to risk dismissal unless they disassociate themselves from their own university in every speech, public comment, academic conference, or published writing is irrational, unconstitutional, and impossible to obey.

Suppose that a journalist rightly refuses to include such an inane statement in a news story identifying the professor’s affiliation. Is a professor to be subject to firing for this offense, even if, as happened to Al-Arian at Fox News Channel, he requested not be identified as a USF professor? Accurately describing one’s institutional affiliation has never been and will never be regarded as an endorsement of a professor’s views by the entire university.

Third, USF officials accused Al-Arian of violating their order for him not to come to campus. USF provost David Stamps claims he told Al-Arian to stay away from campus when putting him on paid leave. Al-Arian claims he was only told not to attend his classes, so he came to an Oct. 5 meeting of the Muslim Students Association which he advises. (It is particularly strange that Al-Arian was summoned to campus in order to pick up the letter accusing him of violating the order not to come to campus.) It is highly questionable whether any public college has the right to order a professor who has done nothing wrong to never set foot on campus. At most, a college worried about safety could, in an emergency, require Al-Arian to inform them of any visits in advance to allow for proper security. Even if a total ban was legal, a written order would be required, and the violation of such a ban cannot justify firing a tenured professor.

Clearly, Al-Arian did nothing to justify dismissal by USF. Appearing on a talk show, being identified as a USF professor, receiving threats, and attending a meeting on campus are all utterly ludicrous grounds for the punishment of anyone, and the firing of a tenured professor on this basis cannot be sustained.

Is Al-Arian a Terrorist?

USF officials have repeatedly claimed that the allegations of terrorism had nothing to do with Al-Arian’s firing. If anything, this denial increased the threat to academic freedom, since it meant that anyone who received a death threat could, according to USF’s criteria, be fired. However, it is clear that allegations of terrorism against Al-Arian was the secret reason for his dismissal. Board of Trustees Chairman Richard Beard declared, “the real reason is he's a terrorist.” President Genshaft hinted that Al-Arian should have been fired years ago because "he has been known to have ties to terrorists. It's been willful, organized, repeated."

Even though USF officially has refused to say that Al-Arian is being fired for his links to terrorism, this is clearly the underlying reason. Can the accusation of terrorism, if proven true, justify any action against Al-Arian?

It should be clear that Al-Arian is not himself a terrorist. No one has ever accused him of carrying out or masterminding terrorist attacks. Instead, Al-Arian is being accused of supporting terrorism with his words, his activities, and his fundraising. The case for firing Al-Arian because “he is a terrorist” relies on three arguments. First, it is claimed that Al-Arian’s speeches more than a decade ago against Israel justify his firing. Second, it is claimed that the organizations Al-Arian helped to found were linked to terrorism. Third, it is claimed that Al-Arian raised money for terrorist organizations. None of these arguments are convincing: Al-Arian did nothing illegal, and certainly nothing to justify his firing.

First of all, Al-Arian is condemned for what he said more than a decade ago about Israel at conferences among pro-Palestinian groups. In 1991, Al-Arian declared in a speech, “God warns us in the Koran from the sons of Israel, and cursed them in the holy Koran. In 1991, Al-Arian also said, "Let us damn America, let us damn Israel, let us damn them and their allies until death.” But the right to condemn a government is a part of free speech. Even the phrase, “Death to Israel,” used in a 1988 speech, is legitimate: urging the death of a government does not necessarily entail violence toward any human beings. All of these views may be despicable. But they cannot justify the dismissal of a tenured professor.

The firing of Al-Arian for the thought crime of “supporting terrorism” is untenable for several reasons. First of all, Al-Arian has repeatedly condemned terrorism. Al-Arian has said, “What happened on Sept. 11 is a criminal act against humanity and I have supported the efforts to bring these criminals to justice.” Al-Arian has also denounced the suicide bombings against innocent civilians in Israel, which he says “is inexcusable and is wrong and should never be allowed."

Vincent M. Cannistraro, who was Director of Intelligence Programs in the Reagan Administration and the CIA's Chief of Counterterrorism Operations, wrote to Genshaft: “There is no connection between anything al-Arian is or was connected to that has any bearing whatsoever on the events of 9/11….Your action is both a blow to academic freedom and, dare I say it, a cowardly act that reflects poorly on both the University and your own lack of convictions.”

Even if Al-Arian had supported terrorism, that would be well within his rights to free speech. Tenured professors cannot be fired for their foreign policy opinions; the Supreme Court has ruled that teachers cannot be dismissed for expressing ideas on matters of public concern, no matter how unpopular those views might be.

(The existence of this videotape used to discredit Al-Arian also raises a troubling picture of the FBI involvement in this case. The FBI raided Al-Arian’s home and WISE and seized 500 videotapes of his conferences and meetings. Although no crimes were committed, the FBI shut down a university-based think tank and seized its assets as a terrorist organization. Unable to get any indictments against Al-Arian or others, federal officials imprisoned Al-Arian’s friend and brother-in-law for immigration violations for more than three years without any charges, based on secret evidence. Then the FBI created a 13-minute compilation tape of Al-Arian’s most offensive statements and leaked it to the media in an attempt to embarrass Al-Arian and have him fired. Then, at the urging of a USF trustee, the FBI extended the investigation of Al-Arian in order to help provide support for his firing. In 2000, the FBI sent seven investigators to Israel to examine the questionable secret evidence of Israeli intelligence officials. These actions bear a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s COINTELPRO activities during the 1960s and 1970s, when the FBI used disinformation to have students expelled and teachers fired, such as University of California chancellor Clark Kerr.)

Guilt by Association with Terrorism

Second, advocates for firing Al-Arian claim that his association with terrorism justifies dismissal. In 1990, Al-Arian founded the World and Islam Studies Enterprises (WISE), a think tank based at USF until it was raided in 1995 by the FBI for terrorist links and had its assets frozen. One WISE conference included Sheik Omar Abdul-Rahman, the blind sheik who was later convicted for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Abdul-Rahman came to an Islamic Committee for Palestine (ICP) conference uninvited. Although Al-Arian disagreed with Abdul-Rahman, he felt obligated to allow him to speak at an open conference. This is no different from a professor holding a conference on abortion at which a radical attends, expresses his view that abortion is murder, and then later bombs an abortion clinic. The organizers of a conference cannot be held responsible for later terrorist acts made by attendees, particularly those who were never invited to appear.

A former head of WISE, Ramadan Abdulah Shallah, left in 1995 to take charge of the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad. was “very innocuous and scholarly” according to Arthur Lowry, the former political adviser to U.S. Central Command who co-founded USF’s Committee for Middle Eastern Studies. Al-Arian and others report being shocked when Shallah left USF and became the head of Islamic Jihad. A professor cannot be fired simply because a future terrorist once ran an organization he started.

WISE once held an event with Hassan Turabi, a Sudanese scholar sometimes linked to terrorism, although at the time the event was considered a major success by USF. Al-Arian was also linked to Tariq Hamdi, who once worked as ICP’s office manager, and went on to be a journalist who worked with ABC News to arrange an interview with Osama Bin-Laden. However, if Hamdi is deemed a terrorist for his journalistic work, then everyone at ABC News is guilty of supporting terrorism by being linked to him.

Al-Arian has never been detained or charged with a crime. Instead, he is only accused of guilt by association. He has denounced terrorism, including the Sept. 11 attacks, and expressed shock at the terrorist links of those he was once associated with. An independent investigation by former USF president William Reese Smith Jr. concluded that WISE was a scholarly organization and a benefit to the university.

Al-Arian’s brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, was jailed for three years on secret evidence as a threat to national security before being released a year ago for lack of evidence (but he was imprisoned again after Sept. 11, despite no plausible links with terrorist activities, and then deported in August, 2002). An immigration judge who reviewed Al-Najjar’s case found that WISE was a legitimate scholarly operation, not a terrorist front group.

Fundraising for Terrorism

Finally, Al-Arian is accused of raising money for terrorist groups. Al-Arian’s group, Islamic Committee for Palestine, helped raise $20,000-$30,000 a year for Palestinian charities. Israeli officials claim to have evidence that $8,000 of the money Al-Arian and some of his associates sent in 1993 to the Middle East ended up transferred to the families of four terrorists. Even if this is true, there is no evidence Al-Arian knew about it, or that a small grant of money to the families of terrorists amounts to funding terrorism.

Israel intelligence officials have also reportedly claimed that Al-Arian helped to create a consulting board to Islamic Jihad, and gave them computer equipment in 1994, although no evidence has been presented for these charges, nor do they justify any firing.

Al-Arian says that he did not aid the terrorist group Hamas personally, although he encouraged others to do so. Al-Arian wrote to a friend on Feb. 1, 1995, after a terrorist attack killed 19 Israeli soldiers, "The link with the brothers in Hamas is very good and making steady progress…. I call upon you to try to extend true support to the jihad effort so that operations such as these can continue." However, Al-Arian has always defended the right of Palestinians to attack Israeli soldiers.

All of Al-Arian’s fundraising was legal, since it was done before a 1996 law banned donations to groups deemed terrorists by the U.S. State Department.

There is no evidence that any money raised by Al-Arian went to support terrorism. Even if a small amount of money without his knowledge was used to aid families of suicide bombers, this is not tantamount to supporting terrorism. Even financial support for terrorism, if proven, cannot be cause for firing a tenured professor. One problem is defining what terrorism is. One person’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Both sides in the war in Nicaragua accused the other of killing innocent people. Should a professor who gave humanitarian aid to the either side be fired? Consider also the case of Henry Kissinger. As Christopher Hitchens notes in The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Kissinger supported regimes that murdered innocents and even helped overthrow democracies to install terrorist states. Yet a university could not fire Kissinger for his actions as Secretary of State.

The Peril to Academic Freedom

This is not the first time the University of South Florida has violated Al-Arian’s academic freedom. He was put on paid leave by USF administrators from 1996 to 1998 while under investigation by the FBI (who found no criminal behavior). Putting a professor on paid leave for years due to unfounded suspicion of a crime is a serious threat to academic freedom, but it is mild in comparison to firing a professor without any accusation of misbehavior.

The process used to fire Al-Arian was itself deeply flawed. In an Oct. 14 editorial she wrote for the Tampa Tribune, USF president Judy Genshaft practically announced that she was searching for an excuse to fire Al-Arian: “I understand the anger. But the fact is there are no currently known grounds for firing Al-Arian.” The grounds for dismissal were quickly discovered as USF found that donors were withholding money because of the publicity surrounding Al-Arian.

Trustee Steve Burton asked school officials in October to hire an outside attorney to find legal grounds to fire Al-Arian. Trustee chair Richard Beard III, a real estate adviser, spoke to the FBI about Al-Arian. On November 1, local attorney Thomas Gonzalez was hired at the request of the trustees to determine if USF could fire Al-Arian. On December 18, Gonzalez noted that USF had suffered a decline in fundraising because of the controversy and issued his legal opinion claiming “strong and compelling grounds for taking disciplinary action against Dr. Al-Arian, up to and including dismissal from his employment.”

The trustees were so anxious to fire Al-Arian that they called an emergency meeting on Dec. 19 where they passed a resolution recommending termination. Only one trustee opposed the measure: Howard University president J. Patrick Swygert, the only academic on the board, who wanted to punish Al-Arian by suspending him without pay. Genshaft, who had consulted with Gov. Jeb Bush and trustees, but not faculty and academic freedom experts, issued a "letter of intent to terminate" Al-Arian that same day.

If Genshaft had honestly declared that Al-Arian was fired because of the public outrage over his beliefs, she could at least be praised for forthrightness. Instead, Genshaft sought to narrow the idea of academic freedom and declared: “Interestingly, because academic freedom is so revered and because we have such widespread general agreement about it, academic freedom is a term that is often used without regard to its long-established, specific definitions. Academic freedom protects the pursuit of ideas in a faculty member's field of academic expertise.”

Academic freedom has never been limited to speech in the area of academic expertise. It also protects faculty from arbitrary punishment for their views on matters of public concern. The AAUP Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure declares that faculty do not abandon their rights as citizens to speak publicly.

President Genshaft claimed, “If we are to protect academic freedom, if we are to protect freedom of expression, if we are to maintain a learning environment in which expression and examination of ideas can flourish, our students, faculty and staff must know they can come to our campuses and work, study and talk in safety.… if people fear harm on campus, they will either stay away or be so distracted by anxiety that they cannot give proper attention to their academic tasks.” Here is the ultimate Orwellian logic: we must destroy academic freedom in order to save academic freedom.

It is true that fear can infringe upon academic freedom. That is why we outlaw death threats rather than protecting them as free speech. However, USF students and faculty now have much more to fear than ever before. Now they know that if they don’t like the views of a professor, an anonymous death threat will be sufficient grounds to fire that professor. Faculty and students who receive a death threat now will be reluctant to report it, lest they find themselves protectively banished from campus. Faculty who have ever dared to speak on a matter of public concern beyond their narrow academic field without denying their link to USF must be afraid that they, too, will be fired if the administration doesn’t like them.

While death threats are a serious matter, a university—and a country--cannot live in fear. More importantly, a university cannot cave in to terrorist threats and start dismissing professors due to that fear. If Genshaft received a death threat for firing Al-Arian, would she ban herself permanently from campus to protect the safety of students?

Gonzalez wrote in his legal opinion, “Dr. Al-Arian has caused a substantial disruption to the University's operations.” Of course, Al-Arian did not cause the disruption. Appearing on a TV show is not in any way a disruption of University operations. Sami Al-Arian lost his job because he dared to speak out and a dozen people sought to silence him with death threats.

The American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers both condemned the firing. Elizabeth Bird, a professor of anthropology, resigned as an adviser to the USF provost to protest Al-Arian’s firing. USF’s chapter of the United Faculty of Florida declared, “the actions and activities of Professor Sami al-Arian did not constitute misconduct, conflict of interest, or a breach of academic responsibility pursuant to the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.” The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education noted, “If USF's justification for firing Dr. Al-Arian is deemed legitimate, both free speech and academic freedom on college campuses will be devastated.”

Even Bill O’Reilly, who urged that the CIA should follow Al-Arian 24 hours a day (apparently unaware that the CIA is banned from spying in America), condemned the firing: "You don't sack a tenured professor for saying stuff you don't like. This president of the University of South Florida should resign. She's a coward."

The assertion that Al-Arian disrupted USF by speaking out publicly for Palestinians cannot be justified. This may be one of the flimsiest excuses for firing a professor in the long and ugly history of academic freedom in America.

Everyone concerned about academic freedom should express outrage at what happened at USF. They should assist USF professors in finding employment at universities where academic freedom is protected. If invited to speak at USF, they should express their dismay at the administration’s misconduct. And, since USF is clearly moved by money more than principle, they should urge a boycott of USF by all donors who support the idea of academic freedom.

If trustees and the presidents they hire are incapable of protecting academic freedom, then it is time for faculty and students to demand greater representation on Boards of Trustees. When political connections and money are the primary qualifications for becoming a trustee, we should not be surprised to find universities run by people who do not understand what a university is or why academic freedom is essential.

Academic freedom is not merely a good idea to be followed when it is convenient and comfortable. Academic freedom must be the foundation of an institution’s values in order for it to be a university. Sadly, the University of South Florida has abandoned the idea of academic freedom for the sake of political expediency.

(New York Times, 3/1/02, 7/23/02, 8/20/02; O’Reilly Factor, 3/4/02, 3/11/02, 3/21/02, 7/1/02, 7/3/02; St. Petersburg Times, 2/22/02, 2/23/02, 3/10/02, 3/21/02, 3/22/02, 3/27/92, 3/28/02, 5/7/02, 6/1/02, 6/9/02, 7/28/02, 8/12/02; Tampa Tribune, 2/22/02, 3/3/02, 3/15/02, 3/21/02, 4/25/02, 5/7/02, 6/23/02, 6/25/02, 6/30/02, 7/28/02, 8/20/02; USF Oracle, 4/2/02, 4/9/02, 6/13/02, 6/24/02, 7/8/02; Washington Post, 3/15/02, 6/25/02, 7/28/02; Weekly Planet, 3/28/02, 6/27/02; www.academicfreespeech.com)