Should he stay or should he go?

We asked a few crisis management pros how USF president Judy Genshaft should handle the impending Sami Al-Arian decision.

By DAVE SCHEIBER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 22, 2002

USF president Judy Genshaft is expected to decide soon whether to follow through on firing USF professor Sami Al-Arian or reversing her own stated opinion and allow him to return to campus.

For months she has been studying the intricacies of the matter, seeking input from administrative colleagues, faculty members, students and parents. And soon, University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft will announce her decision.

It will be the biggest one of her career, and one of the most significant in the school's 46 years.

Genshaft will reveal whether she intends to follow the board of trustees' 12-1 recommendation to fire engineering professor Sami Al-Arian. Or whether she will reverse her stated intention to fire Al-Arian, rescind his suspension and the campus ban she imposed in December, and reinstate him on the faculty.

Or whether she will announce she has come up with some other solution to extricate the school from an ugly mess that has been going on since late September.

In the meantime, we thought we might help.

This week, we contacted specialists in crisis management from around the Tampa Bay area and the state to solicit their input. Our basic question: If you were advising Genshaft, what would you tell her to do?

The controversy arose Sept. 26 when Al-Arian, a tenured professor, appeared on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly grilled the pro-Palestinian professor on alleged terrorist ties and inflammatory anti-Israel comments he made in speeches more than a decade earlier.

The university was deluged with angry e-mails and phone calls. Al-Arian, who denied terrorist connections, received a death threat. Parents expressed concern for the safety of students on campus. And life at USF -- at least for Genshaft and Al-Arian -- has never been the same.

On one side of the issue: concerns about the school's security and well-being, USF's ability to raise money and support for Genshaft not just from the board but also students and the governor.

On the other side: the heated subjects of academic freedom and free speech, and faculty outcries that firing Al-Arian would grievously infringe on his basic rights. Also looming is the possibility of censure from the American Association of University Professors and the threat of a lawsuit by Al-Arian if he is fired.

Genshaft insists the dispute is not about academic freedom but about a professor who violated his contract by failing to make it clear he spoke for himself and not the university, by coming on campus during his ban and by causing serious disruption.

Critics have said that rationale could have been used to enforce segregationist policies in the '50s. They have urged Genshaft not to give into political correctness and "mob mentality." A New York Times editorial recently came down heavily on the side of "free speech and academic freedom," and even O'Reilly now says Al-Arian shouldn't lose his job.

What's a president to do?

One thing Genshaft has done is take extra time to make her decision, weighing advice from many fronts. Political and media consultants and public relations execs are masters of the art of spin, in helping clients devise problem-solving strategies. From our field of experts, here is more advice, some of the best money could buy, free of charge:

1. Stay the course. Public opinion is with you.

[Times photo: Stefanie Boyar] Sami Al-Arian has been suspended from teaching at USF, banned from campus and been told by the board he should be fired. Now he awaits a decision from USF President Judy Genshaft.

"If I were her political consultant, I would say stay on the message of security and disruption, and simply that the bad judgment Al-Arian used -- if nothing else -- should prevent him from collecting taxpayer funds as a salary," says Wayne Garcia, a consultant with Repper, Garcia & Associates.

"The public is going to come down against Professor Al-Arian and for Judy Genshaft 99 percent of the time,"' he adds. "She has got to continue to frame this issue in the way that she's been framing it -- in terms of campus security and national security, because that's what is playing out on the street."

What about academic freedom and free speech?

"Academic freedom is a great concept on campus, but most people, and especially most voters, do not have an appreciation or an understanding of it. I think they equate it with tenure and the ability to say anything and never lose your job. Most people don't have that freedom."

Garcia says Genshaft benefits from having a Republican governor ("Democrats have closer ties to the teachers union") and a board made up of people from the business community. He doesn't think threat of censure from the American Association of University Professors should affect her decision: "I've never seen the AAUP have a political impact on anybody. The real fallout from this will come from the inside, which could make it tough to govern. So she's going to have to spin it to have the least amount of damage on campus."

2. Reach out to faculty and focus the debate.

"My opinion is, she should acknowledge that there is more than one point of view here and that people of good minds and dispositions can come to different conclusions on this case," says Adam Goodman, a Tampa-based consultant who has worked with Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris and St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker. "But given that she's the one making the decision, and given all the solid input from all sides of the question, she feels that this individual no longer has the credibility to continue."

Goodman says Genshaft has a special advantage, one he would stress to her to make the most of.

"Judy is relatively new to the community, and so she came into this with a clean slate," he says. "She's facing a decision that could define the future of the college for a long time, but it's something she inherited: behavior that could have led to disciplinary action or worse against this professor years ago and was not pursued.

"So she can come in as more of an unbiased juror and say, "You know, I've reviewed the facts from the past, and I have to tell you, if I had been president of the university at that moment, I would have made a decision very fast and clearly that this professor had to go.' Because academic freedom does not entitle anyone to do things that threaten the security of anyone."

Finally, says Goodman, he would counsel her to frame the debate around the taxpayer: "Should a taxpayer-supported university pay the salary of anybody who preaches the kind of views this individual does?

"In the courts of university justice, that might be a long, drawn out and less clear-cut trial. But in the court of public opinion, I think the verdict would be fast and direct, and I believe it would be: "Get rid of him.' "

3. Turn up the heat.

"I think Judy's handled things in an excellent way, and I would say to her, "Keep up what you're doing, but turn it up a little higher, turn the flame up a little more,' " says Mary Repper of Repper, Garcia & Associates.

"It's important for her to continue to educate the public about this entire dispute -- how everything was at stake at the college, how she could have lost a lot of community support and people would have been less inclined to contribute. The academic world feels differently than she does, and I suppose there is a consequence that they may try to inflict on her. But in the world of public opinion, she's doing the right stuff, and ultimately, I think people will respect her."

4. Be open at all costs.

"I couldn't tell her how to handle her own people, but here again, candor and truth-telling always pays off," says Bob Carter, a St. Petersburg business and management consultant specializing in communications issues around the Southeast.

"I would be as absolutely open as my legal team and board would let me be. And I would challenge them to tell the truth. That always pays off. There's a natural tendency in corporate board rooms to pull in and then not be heard. Judy is not that way. She has been open and out there and answering questions. I know there are some real sensitive issues, but that's going to help her most with the faculty -- talking to them with candor and truth."

5. It's not as complicated as it seems.

"What I would say, without taking a stand on whether or not she believes the allegations by Bill O'Reilly and others are true, is that this professor's employment has generated a controversy that has taken his focus, and the university's focus, off their mission," says Ron Sachs, a media consultant in Tallahassee with statewide and national clientele.

"And I don't know that he can go ahead about the business of conducting a class and being a professor when he's under this kind of cloud. You are presumed innocent in this system of jurisprudence, and the professor may pursue a legal remedy. But if the president is going to remain solidly in her job, which relies a lot more on the board, the general public and the decisionmakers in Tallahassee, she'd be hard-pressed not to severe his ties to the university."

Sachs says it will be simpler for Genshaft to shore up relations with her faculty than "winning over the general public and her own board."

"In talking to the faculty, she ought to emphasize that there are limitations to academic freedom on America's college campuses," he says, "just as there are limitations to crying fire in a crowded theater."

6. Take the offensive.

"Go to public forums, wherever you can be seen, and explain your reasoning. That's not a defensive posture, it's an offensive posture," says Karl Koch, '96 state director of the Clinton campaign who works for the Dewey Square Group, a national public affairs firm based in Tampa.

"Take the debate to the people. Meet with people who are mad at you. By and large, people expect their leaders to lead. They don't expect to agree with their leaders on every decision."

Whatever Genshaft decides -- even if she changes course and opts to retain Al-Arian -- Koch says she should be guided by a basic tenet: "Articulate her case for why she's going to do what she's going to do, and be as open as possible. It's a very tough decision for her, one way or the other."

7. Only she can make the call.

"The president is facing a classic, career-defining moment -- she's damned if she does, and damned if she doesn't," says Jim Lukaszewski, whose New York-based Lukaszewski Group Inc. counsels large corporations on handling serious issues from medical malpractice to recalls to employee problems.

Lukaszewski says if Genshaft ultimately were to decide to keep Al-Arian, she would be standing up for an important principle, the integrity of tenure: "That principle is to insulate the teaching staff. So one can understand why the college faculty would be extremely concerned that a matter of the moment, even if it was war, could lead to the expulsion of an individual who has tenure. The philosophical, ideological and emotional leader of the organization, I think, is expected to stand up to any sort of pressure that comes along."

However, Lukaszewski recognizes the complexity of Genshaft's dilemma. "This man's behavior is probably threatening the integrity of the university, and that's what this is about," he says. "If she keeps the guy, given that her board voted 12-1 to fire him, she's a walking wounded and he's a symbol of a principle that the public dislikes. This is an enormous test of personal character. It's only a choice she can make. She's staring into the abyss either way."

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