Investigator: Genshaft wavering on Al-Arian's fate

An oversight investigator's report indicates USF's president is worried about the school being censured.

By GRAHAM BRINK, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published April 26, 2002

TAMPA -- An investigator with the American Association of University Professors thinks University of South Florida president Judy Genshaft is having second thoughts about firing controversial professor Sami Al-Arian.

Genshaft, however, denies any such change of mind and is sticking by earlier statements that she is on solid legal ground if she terminates Al-Arian.

AAUP investigator William Van Alstyne isn't so sure. In a report he submitted recently to AAUP officials, he said interviews with Genshaft indicate "she does not want to preside over the university" if it is censured by the AAUP, the organization that wrote many of the principles that govern academic freedom in higher education.

Even if the university were to win union and legal challenges, he wrote, Genshaft would not want to be depicted as a person who was "careless, as a university president, on matters either of academic freedom ... or other people's freedom of political speech."

Van Alstyne, a Duke University law professor, thinks Genshaft purposefully hedged her bets by placing Al-Arian on paid leave instead of suspension. He said her "surprising" four-month delay in making a decision indicates that Genshaft has lost faith in the legal advice that green-lighted Al-Arian's proposed firing.

USF spokesman Michael Reich said Thursday that Van Alstyne's assumptions were "simply inaccurate." Whatever the final outcome, he said, the AAUP's investigation will not be a deciding factor in Genshaft's decision-making.

"We will not let some union dictate what we will do," Reich said.

Al-Arian, a tenured computer science professor, became the focus of death threats after his alleged ties to terrorists were aired on national television a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

But that wasn't the first time Al-Arian has been the center of controversy.

He was under federal investigation in the mid 1990s, when agents suspected that an Islamic think tank he operated at USF was a front for Middle Eastern terrorists.

In February, federal authorities said Al-Arian remains under investigation but would not elaborate. Al-Arian, who is on paid leave pending Genshaft's decision, has not been charged with a crime.

Genshaft has not used the alleged ties to terrorism as a reason for terminating Al-Arian. Instead, she has said that Al-Arian violated contractual agreements and that his presence on campus would jeopardize the safety of students and faculty.

A three-person AAUP committee made up of professors from other universities visited USF in March after the association concluded that the case had "raised issues of academic freedom, tenure and due process that are of basic concern to the academic community and are incumbent on us to address."

The AAUP has been a leading voice in higher education since its inception in 1915. Its censure is a powerful force in academia, one that can have a significant impact on faculty hiring and retention.

USF spent four years on the AAUP censure list in the 1960s after its president refused to hire a political scientist who had written a book critical of U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War.

The Al-Arian committee, including chairman Van Alstyne, spoke with faculty, staff, students and administrators during its March visit. A full report should be completed in the next few months, said the association's general secretary, Mary Burgan.

A decision to censure is made by a vote of the AAUP membership. If the case gets to that point, the vote would not take place until June 2003. If Genshaft decides to retain Al-Arian, no such vote would be needed, although an analysis of the issues would still go forward, Burgan said.

"This report was more a compilation of notes, more Mr. Van Alstyne's opinions (than) a statement of fact," Burgan said. "The final report will be much more comprehensive."

USF faculty union president Roy Weatherford said the public, and to a certain extent Genshaft and the USF Board of Trustees, did not understand that the academic community would almost unanimously view terminating Al-Arian as a bad decision.

Van Alstyne's report makes that very clear, he said.

"USF is approaching respectability in the academic world," Weatherford said. "Being subjected to censure once again would show they are a second-rate university that is not serious about becoming a first-rate institution."

Al-Arian's lawyer, Robert F. McKee, said the preliminary report was a step in the right direction. He said Genshaft's delay in making a decision also is hopeful because it signals she is "weighing all the options and consequences."

Al-Arian said he considers the preliminary report "good news," though Genshaft's rejection of Van Alstyne's assesment tempered his enthusiasm.

"I'm happy they've made it clear that censure is a definite possibility," he said.

-- Contact Graham Brink at (813) 226-3365 or brink@sptimes.com.

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