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The Issues
in the controversy over
the possible termination of
USF Professor Sami Al-Arian
This page outlines the issues involving the possible termination of Professor
Al-Arian.
Injustice anywhere
is a threat to justice
everywhere.
-- Martin L. King, Jr.
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In a kiln, the radiation from the heated air so saturates the space inside
the kiln that a heat-proof camera, placed inside the kiln to take a picture
of a pot or vase, gets only a reddish blur.
Similarly, in controversy, if the air gets too hot, then it is impossible
to even make out the outlines of the real issues amidst the reddish blur
of heated and irrelevant rhetoric.
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The purpose of these pages is to highlight the primary issues involved in this
case.
There are three major issues involved, and we have a page for each.
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This is about freedom itself.
Professor Al-Arian got into trouble for saying unpopular things, and this
leads to the question: in America, should people get into trouble for
saying unpopular things?
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This is also about law and order.
When the government itself --- when an agency of the State of Florida ---
wilfully violates an individual's constitutional, contractual, and
due process rights, it is breaking the law.
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This is about academic freedom.
Academic freedom is not just a special right of scholars to speak, it is
also a right of the public to hear what scholars have to say.
An attack on academic freedom is in fact at attack on the public interest.
Elsewhere on this website, we have pages on:
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