Posted on 10/02/2001 12:10:11 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
-----Belated concerns about a defunct campus
think tank dominated by Islamic radicals
are causing new problems for the
University of South Florida. ---------
Six years after it was disbanded, the World and Islam Studies Enterprise is bringing belated and unwelcome attention to the University of South Florida. Bombastic Fox News host Bill O'Reilly warned his audience last week that USF "may be a hotbed of support for Arab militants." O'Reilly's contentious interview with Sami Al-Arian, a USF engineering professor who founded WISE in the early 1990s, brought predictable reactions from some Tallahassee politicians and university donors. For USF president Judy Genshaft, the controversy over WISE, in the emotional environment created by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, represents one more inherited problem that will require a deft response.
Genshaft's first responsibility is to defend academic freedom, and USF's academic reputation, from unwarranted criticism and threats. USF is not a hotbed of Islamic terrorism. Whatever one thinks of WISE, it is defunct, and Al-Arian, who was put on paid leave last week because of campus safety concerns, is the only remaining USF faculty member closely associated with the organization. The controversy over WISE should not be used as an excuse to impinge on the university's responsibility to serve as an open forum for ideas, even unpopular ones.
At the same time, Genshaft and other university officials should be candid about the failure of previous USF administrations to give WISE and its affiliated organizations proper oversight. WISE, a clearinghouse for Islamic militants in the guise of an academic think tank, never deserved the imprimatur it received from USF officials.
Al-Arian says he was motivated to form WISE because he found that the Arab and Palestinian points of view were poorly represented in the Middle East course offerings at many American universities, including USF. However, WISE never built the academic credentials necessary to fulfill the role Al-Arian says he envisioned. Al-Arian is an engineering professor with no recognized expertise in history or political science. In the early 1990s, USF and WISE made a formal agreement to co-sponsor scholarly conferences on campus, but many of the conferees sponsored by Al-Arian at USF and at other events around the country were radical Islamic polemicists -- some later turned out to be terrorists -- with little or no academic standing. Their speeches were almost invariably incendiary, not scholarly. Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, later convicted in connection with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, was brought to speak at one conference. Al-Arian himself sometimes has been given to violent rhetoric, such as this 1988 speech excerpt quoted by O'Reilly: "Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem." Al-Arian told O'Reilly the quote needed to be put into context.
WISE was shut down in 1995 after Ramadan Shallah, a former WISE administrator brought to USF by Al-Arian, left Tampa unexpectedly and resurfaced in Syria as the leader of the anti-Israel terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. That shocking turn of events finally got the attention of USF officials -- and the FBI. USF ended its affiliation with WISE, and Al-Arian was placed on paid leave for two years while federal authorities investigated him.
Al-Arian later was reinstated, and people should understand that he has never been charged with any crime. Mazen Al-Najjar, Al-Arian's brother-in-law and WISE associate, was arrested at the same time and charged with visa violations. Al-Najjar then was imprisoned for more than three years based on supposed secret evidence that he was a threat to national security. He finally was released in December after a federal judge and then-Attorney General Janet Reno concluded that the evidence didn't warrant his imprisonment. Al-Najjar's mistreatment was an embarrassment to the judicial system. Al-Arian and Al-Najjar are not U.S. citizens, but they deserve the same presumption of innocence as any other U.S. resident.
However, a presumption of innocence does not entitle anyone to a scholarly affiliation with a major American university. Al-Arian is correct when he argues that Arab and Palestinian points of view deserve equal standing in every university's Middle Eastern studies department. No ideas -- even those of people preaching political violence -- should be censored in an academic setting. Still, academic freedom must be balanced with academic rigor. Course offerings and campus conferences on the Middle East should be led by scholars with credentials in the field -- not by engineers with an ideological agenda.
Barring further revelations, Al-Arian, a respected teacher and scholar in his area of expertise, should be allowed to return to work once authorities determine that his presence on campus will not put him or other members of the USF community in danger. Meanwhile, talk show hosts and politicians should resist the urge to cause new problems for USF based on a mistake that was corrected six years ago.
That's all I need to know for now. Detain them until all relevant information they may possess has been extracted from them - preferably by their cooperation -- and then deport them, give them one way tickets to Afghanistan or Iran. Can you say "bye-bye"? I knew you could!
That's the kicker. I think they do. The flower children of the 60's are instructing our children.
Where were the cries for "academic freedom" when the leftists were trashing the campus newspapers for running David Horowitz's PAID ads ? Like the old "you can buy any color ford you want as long as it's black". Academic Tyranny welcomes all world views, as long as they are atheistic, socialistic and communistic.
The utter hypocrisy and gall of these whited sepulchres is blindingly maddening.
When the FBI finally gets time to investigate who donates to Arab Terrorist organizations and whom these Arab terrorists donate to, will make Ludlum/Clancy look like first graders in their books re treason/terrorism up to now!
Of course we know that one of the organizations contributed $50,000 to Jake Reno's boyfriend/girl friend Hilldebeast in her 2000 run for senate!
Isn't amazing that Jake Reno refused to look at this guy as a terrorist, yet she focused a large % of her resources to go after Bill Gates who gives millions to charities. Oh yeah, he was a rich white guy who didn't contribute mass funds to the DNC and the Clintoons!
Jake Reno focused on white male Christian Americans as the most dangerous people to America and turn off any investigations into the Arabs in America who advocated violence against America and Jews like this advocate of violence, "Al-Arian himself sometimes has been given to violent rhetoric, such as this 1988 speech excerpt quoted by O'Reilly: "Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem."
Follow the money when it comes to American Arabs advocating death to Israel and Americans who support Israel. That rhetoric help to mass murder the 6,000 victims on 9/11!
If Jake Reno was our AG, he/she/it would not be blaming the murderous Arabs who directed and funded this mass murder. She would be focusing on evil right wing conservatives, (white Christain Males)!
Why the rush to guarantee the benefits of the Bill of Rights to a swamp filled with pigs?
Oh, I get it. Janet Reno is involved.
No ideas -- even those of people preaching political violence -- should be censored in an academic setting.
So, then, based on that standard: nationalist 'radicals' with non-mainstream ideology such as Kazinski, McVeigh, Weaver, and Duke should be afforded equal access to the academic environment to espouse their views ....
By the by: I thought we wanted violence OUT of the school system ...
How about an indefinite moratorium on immigration until we can feel safe in our own homes again?
Think about Los Alamos and all the "educational exchange" that went on there.
To a liberal educator a podium is akin to a pulpit .. and from it they preach idealogy as fact...
This is just one more skeleton that was exposed when those planes blew the doors off our national closet.
No, ideas stand or fall on their own merits. None deserve "equal standing."
True, it is useful to take into account different views when evaluating ideas and positions, but this intellectual and moral relativism is repugnant.
Unfortunately, it is also rampant on our campuses.
Far too many people (especially students) believe in this fuzzy intellectual and moral equivalence.
Intellectual judgment is not censorship.
Ideas, like people, gain or lose respect, they don't automatically deserve respect.
Well, they did, and now we have this kind of thought:
The Progressive Challenge: Linking grassroots activists, scholars, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus
toward a multi-issue movement for fairness and justice for all.
Diversity in motion. It's pretty revoltin'.
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