Terror Indictments

Al-Arian vows to fight for job

But an attorney says the fired professor will likely focus first on the federal criminal charges he faces.

By ANITA KUMAR, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 28, 2003

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TAMPA -- Fired University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian, jailed last week on federal charges of being a terrorist, pledged Thursday to fight to get his job back.

His civil attorney, Bob McKee, said he would file a grievance with USF on behalf of the tenured computer science professor. Al-Arian was fired Wednesday after 16 years at the university.

"He will put up a fight," McKee told reporters at a news conference at his Tampa law office. "He will be given a full and fair opportunity to be heard."

USF president Judy Genshaft fired Al-Arian, saying he violated his contract. She contends that he engaged in terrorist activities that harmed the school and interfered with his job.

The school says Al-Arian used USF as a cover to bring faculty and students into the country for terrorist meetings under the guise of academic conferences.

It also alleges that he used university equipment, including computers and phones, to operate a terrorist organization.

Al-Arian, 45, who has a wife and five children, including three in college, lost his $67,500 annual pay as of Wednesday. Other family members do not work.

"We were expecting it completely," said Leena Al-Arian, his 17-year-old daughter and a USF student. "I always thought it was part of the plan."

The Al-Arian controversy thrust USF into an unflattering national debate. The university still may face censure from a respected academic organization, the American Association of University Professors, because of his firing.

Genshaft had been threatening to fire Al-Arian since December 2001 but waited until after he was indicted on federal charges.

She said she planned to fire Al-Arian even if he had not been indicted and accused of overseeing the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the United States.

But McKee said the university obviously waited until after the indictment and perhaps had been working with the federal government for months.

"From a public relations perspective, they needed a cover," McKee said.

"That was the ultimate trump card. It relieves a lot of pressure from the university."

McKee met with Al-Arian on Wednesday afternoon at the Orient Road Jail in Tampa to tell him he had been fired and ask how he wanted to proceed. He has 30 days to file the grievance.

A grievance would trigger months of meetings and reviews at USF before a hearing presided over by an arbitrator agreed upon by both sides.

McKee suggested that the process likely may be delayed due to the criminal trial, which federal prosecutors estimate could take six months to a year.

USF spokesman Michael Reich said the university would consider a postponement.

"He's obviously got bigger problems right now than the job issue," McKee said. "The stakes are a lot higher in the criminal context."

Al-Arian had been on paid leave and banned from the campus since a controversy erupted after he appeared on the Fox News Channel's The O'Reilly Factor after the Sept. 11 attacks.

McKee said Genshaft could have put him on leave without pay until the criminal case concluded.

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