FW: University of South Florida Makes a U-Turn: FIRE and the Cas e of Sami Al-Arian

[Volokh, Eugene]

        TheFIRE's press releases tend to be a bit rhetorically overwrought
(as press releases generally are), but I've generally found them to be quite
factually accurate.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: FIRE [mailto:fire at thefire.org]
> Sent: Friday, August 30, 2002 9:42 AM
> To: volokh at law.ucla.edu
> Subject: University of South Florida Makes a U-Turn: FIRE and
> the Case of Sami Al-Arian
>
>
> To: Eugene Volokh
> From: FIRE
>
> University of South Florida Makes a U-Turn:  FIRE and the
> Case of Sami Al-Arian
>
> TAMPA, FL--Vindicating FIRE's position, the University of
> South Florida (USF) has abandoned its claim that negative
> reactions to Professor Sami Al-Arian's otherwise protected
> speech constituted appropriate grounds to fire him.  USF now
> has set forth charges of sanctionable and criminal behavior
> against the tenured professor of computer science, against
> which he now must have the opportunity to defend himself in
> an appropriate and impartial forum. USF now bears a
> substantial burden of proving the serious charges it has
> lodged against its faculty member.
>
> On September 26, 2001, Sami Al-Arian, an outspoken
> Palestinian activist, appeared on the television program The
> O'Reilly Factor. The host represented Al-Arian as sympathetic
> to (and possibly involved with) terrorist activity, which
> Al-Arian denied.  USF claimed that it received numerous death
> threats as well as angry calls from donors and alumni
> complaining about the program and about the professor's
> tenure at USF.  In December 2001, USF sought to fire Al-Arian
> on the grounds that outside responses to his views had
> created too great a "disruption."  Firing Al-Arian would have
> granted a "heckler's veto" (in this case, a "thug's veto") to
> his critics.  FIRE vigorously opposed this fatal assault on
> academic freedom.
>
> Last week, on August 21, 2002, USF President Judy Genshaft
> announced that the University was changing its claims in its
> effort to dismiss Al-Arian.  USF now charges that Al-Arian
> engaged in a pattern of sanctionable and criminal activity by
> aiding terrorists and financing their activities.  The
> University has also filed a complaint for declaratory
> judgment in Florida's Thirteenth Judicial Circuit Court,
> requesting the guidance of the Court as to whether or not
> their new rationale for terminating Al-Arian, assuming it can
> be proven, would violate his constitutional rights.
>
> "This new set of charges is a complete about-face by USF,"
> said Harvey A. Silverglate, codirector of FIRE.  "In response
> to pressure from FIRE and other groups, USF has backed away
> from its previous and untenable justification for dismissing
> Professor Al-Arian.  If such a rationale had been accepted,
> it would have been the end of academic freedom, because it
> would have given anyone willing to make death threats the
> power to determine who gets to exercise the right of free
> speech on a university campus."
>
> Silverglate added, "By making specific and, in some cases,
> criminal charges, USF is unmistakably renouncing the
> heckler's veto arguments it made earlier in seeking to
> justify last year's termination of Professor Al-Arian.  This
> means that all parties involved will now directly address the
> heart of this controversy--whether Professor Al-Arian engaged
> in anything that would justify his dismissal by a public
> university that must honor the First Amendment."
>
> While the change in USF's approach avoids the thug's veto of
> its previous justification, issues of due process still
> remain.  The Court has been asked to decide if the charges
> would, if proven, be sufficient to terminate Al-Arian. If the
> Court decides that USF is not precluded from firing him,
> then, Silverglate noted, "USF will have the burden of proving
> the truth of its allegations in a hearing at which Al-Arian
> would be accorded due process.  FIRE has no special knowledge
> and hence no position on the truth or falsity of the charges
> of criminal conduct made against Professor Al-Arian."
>
> FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil
> rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists,
> and public intellectuals across the political and ideological
> spectrum on behalf of individual rights, religious liberty,
> due process rights, freedom of expression, and rights of
> conscience on our campuses. FIRE's efforts to preserve
> academic freedom and the Bill of Rights at the University of
> South Florida and elsewhere can be seen by visiting www.thefire.org.
>
> Contact:
> Harvey A. Silverglate, FIRE: 617-523-2933; has at thefire.org
> Greg Lukianoff, FIRE: 215-717,3473; greg at thefire.org
> Judy Genshaft, President, USF: 813-974-2791; jgensha at admin.usf.edu
>
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