Replies

Defient wrote:

"What a mealy-mouthed statement. Why not say that while they value academic freedom, his views are so beyond the pale that they cannot be accepted at USF. Advocating death and destruction of Jews, and racist anti-Semitism, are not acceptable views of a university professor. Simple as that."

As far as I can tell, the professor hasn't been caught saying "death to the Jews," only "death to Israel." In my opinion, the latter would lead massively to the former. However, a large number of American university faculty members do favor the non-existence of Israel, and it would be a tremendous violation of academic freedom to purge them all. In this present case, to the professor's credit, there does not seem to be any evidence of classroom indoctrination. The man, who teaches computer science, espouses his hate on his own time. The real reason that this case has caused a firing isn't the professor's views, or the professor's perfectly legal involvement with anti-Israel hate groups, but the pressure donors and others from outside the university community put on the institution. Personally, I wouldn't contribute to my alma mater due to affirmative action, but it would be despicable of them to change their policy based on such considerations.

Check out Univeersity of South Florida President Judy Genshaft on a good web search engine. The last big controversy she jumped into also involved a firing, and the reason for the firing, since reversed by a court or mediator, was that students complained their white girls basketball coach was a racist for not recruiting hard enough from black high schools, etc. The commonality in both firing cases is unprincipled surrender to pressure.

This single isolated case is going to be used over and over by America-haters to show that America discriminates against Muslims. If the University of South Florida was right in the matter, that wouldn't be worth mentioning. But the spineless and liberal University of South Florida administration is wrong, and America's reputation abroad will suffer from it.

But the spineless and liberal University of South Florida administration is wrong, and America's reputation abroad will suffer from it.

Steve, I disagree with you -- USF was right to fire him, but they were wrong to wait so long. There was a newspaper article Pogy showed me about the rising concern over public safety on that campus, and matters leading up to such increasing tension, and when the public safety is at stake, you have to act, or risk greater potential troubles, both legal and otherwise, later. The USF administration knew there was a risk to the safety of its students, and on that basis alone, I think they had a duty and obligation to eliminate whatever was causing the unsafe condition -- in this case, it was this professor, whatever his religion.

I suggest you do a little homework on the good Dr. Al-Arian and WISE.

Terrorist taint, USF questions tough to escape

Stop Aid and Comfort for Patrons of Terror

Here's a sample:

A case study in Tampa, Fla., proves otherwise. In October 1995 Ramadan Abdullah Shallah took over as head of the Islamic Jihad, based in Damascus, Syria. From 1991 through early 1995, Mr. Shallah was a professor at Tampa's University of South Florida and director of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, ostensibly an academic research center.
After the ex-professor assumed his Islamic Jihad post, the FBI and the Immigration and Naturalization Service raided his former campus office, as well as the offices and home of his USF colleague Sami Al-Arian, the founder of WISE and an affiliated "religious charity" called the Islamic Committee for Palestine. Federal investigators uncovered overwhelming evidence that both organizations were arms of Islamic Jihad. Under the cover of legitimacy its university affiliation provided, WISE actually brought terrorists into the U.S. and raised funds for Islamic Jihad. Mr. Al-Arian, now under federal investigation, organized a series of conferences for "Islamic leaders and thinkers" in Chicago and St. Louis between 1988 and 1992, which featured a number of the world's top, terrorist leaders. The evidence found in his home and office constitute one of the largest collections of raw terrorist material ever seized in the U.S.