This is the second year of the confrontation between the Administration and Board of Trustees of the University of South Florida, and USF Professor Sami Al Arian. The year started when USF President Judy Genshaft and USF Board of Trustees Chair Richard Beard held a press conference announcing that USF was suing Professor Al Arian as a defensive measure against the American Association of University Professors.

In Florida, August is the cruellist month, with temperatures rising to 90, humidity to 100, and the news is dominated with stories of hurricanes past and school years to come. On Aug. 21, five days before the Fall semester began, the USF Administration announced that they indeed intended to fire Al-Arian ... but that they would first submit the proposed Notice of Termination to a court that would rule on its constitutionality. This submission was in the form of a lawsuit, naming Al-Arian as the defendent, but mostly targeting and complaining about the American Association of University Professors.

• THE PRESS CONFERENCE. Preceded by announcements and leaks, President Genshaft, BOT Chair Richard Beard, and four lawyers held a press conference to announce that they were:
  • Changing the rationale for dismisssal. The reason now was that Al-Arian had allegedly assisted terrorists.
  • Not sending the Notice of Termination yet. The Administration wanted a court to rule on whether it violated Al-Arian's First Amendment rights.
  • Suing Al-Arian. The request for a ruling was presented as a lawsuit, with Al-Arian as the defendent.
  Then Genshaft left the room, and Beard and the four lawyers answered questions.
• Big News in August. Then the press reported the story, which circulated around the world (though our links are primarily English-language ones in America). The lawsuit was a surprise, and elicited a lot of comment.
• Al-Arian's Brother-in-Law. Mazen Al-Najjar had helped Al-Arian with WISE, and had spent years in detention ordered by the Department of Justice based on secret evidence. By some curious coincidence, the USA attempted to deport Al-Najjar to Bahrain at this time, and wound up deporting him to Lebanon.
• Of course, this is about the contract: it is the contract that protects Al-Arian's due process and academic freedom rights against the Board of Trustees. In perhaps the opening salvo, UFF petitions to remain the designated bargaining agent, to protect the contract.
• The semester starts. The news was out, but that still left time for more opinions.

The Fall semester began just as the initial wave of reactions began to recede, so while the rest of the world returned to its daily business, faculty, students, and staff at USF were reminded by recapitulations and new rationales of what was going on.

• A New Semester. The opinions on the lawsuit, and the opinions on the local and national context, continued to roll in.
• USF's First Academic Freedom Crisis. Sheldon Grebstein, who had suffered through USF's strange encounter with a legislative ``investigative'' committee in the early 1960s, and went on to have a very distinguished career, returned to USF to reminisce.
• Attempting Movement. Al-Arian's lawyer moved to have USF's suit shifted to federal court, while views on the situation continue to come in.
• Taking Stock. The USF Oracle runs a 3-part retrospective while USF external counsel Bruce Rogow and USF General Counsel R. B. Friedlander explain to the Faculty Senate.

While Al-Arian continued to give speeches, and partisans on all sides waited for the federal court to decide if it would hear the case, the campaign to save the contract that protects all faculty got into high gear. This contract is at the center of the dispute between Al-Arian and the USF Board of Trustees, and it is also what protects due process and academic freedom rights for all faculty. And it was set to expire on January 7, 2002, and the USF Board of Trustees was resisting every effort to extend it, or replace it with a newly bargained contract. It seemed increasingly likely that the Board was seriously contemplating going into January 8, 2003, with no contract at all ...

• Miscellany. Campus-Watch watched USF, Al-Arian spoke about Iraq, Ms. Al-Arian spoke about her brother, and the USF Administration countered Al-Arian's move to shift the case to federal court.
• Noise from Ann Arbor. Al-Arian was scheduled to speak at the 2nd ``divestiture'' conference, but Deborah Schlussel had other ideas: the result was more publicity than the conference organizers could have hoped for.
• A Letter to the Faculty. In early to mid-October, Florida university administrations sent reassuring letters to their faculty.
• The Faculty Senate was not particularly reassured, especially when Florida AAUP chapter chair David Kerr talked about censure.
• A Town Meeting. UFF held a town meeting to get feedback from faculty on bargaining and other issues.
• More Miscellany. USF Board of Trustees member Patrick Swygert, the only academic on the board, the only one to oppose dismissing Al-Arian, resigns for unrelated reasons. And people continue to express opinions ...

For decades, the relationship between USF faculty and the USF Administration had been regulated by a contract. But the USF Administration insisted that the reorganization prevented them from agreeing to extend the contract, and also from recognizing the union. This was the contract which UFF contended that the university was violating in its treatment of Al-Arian. And now things were coming to a head.
USF had sued Al-Arian, asking for a declaratory ruling that its proposed letter of termination did not violate Al-Arian's First Amendment rights. In December, a federal court dismissed the suit, leaving the Administration with the choice of appealing or ... doing something else. Meanwhile, everyone prepared for Jan. 7, when the reorganization had been supposed to be finalized, and when USF insisted that the contract expired.

• The First Monday after the First Tuesday of November. The overwhelming victory of Jeb Bush, who has a history of anti-union rhetoric and actions, and his party in both houses of the Legislature suggested that the USF Administration would continue its course. But Amendment # 11 passed, reforming the reorganization of the State University System.
• Miscellany. More opinions on the case.
• The Lawsuit is Federal. On Nov. 18, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bucklew agreed with Al-Arian's lawyer that as the USF lawsuit against Al-Arian asks for a ruling on federal (First Amendment) constitutional issues, it should be heard in federal court.
• Wolf at the Door. USF proposes a collection of new personnel rules to take effect once, in USF's opinion, the contract expires. These rules would make major changes, and were imposed without consulting faculty.
• Case Dismissed. On Dec. 16, Judge Bucklew ruled that USF's case did not reach the standard required for a judgement, and dismissed the case.
• The contract. The university announced that it would be changing policy in ways that would violated the contract (if it turns out that the contract is still in force).

On January 7, the contract expired. No successor was negotiated: the Board of Trustees said that it would not, could not, negotiate a successor contract. The Administration soon offered an alternative: the union could abandon the sequence of contracts, and the sequence of arbitration decisions associated with it, and restart the bargaining process at a disadvantage. UFF declined, asserting its commitment to the contract.
The contract was important because, from UFF's point of view, the contract was what the fight was about. Al-Arian has certain contractual rights, and it is the contract that establishes those rights. On Jan. 6, one day before the contract expired, Al-Arian filed a grievance claiming that being suspended indefinitely was a violation of his contractual rights.

• Al-Arian files a grievance. Filed on Jan. 6, one day before the contract expired, the grievance claims that the indefinite leave and banishment is itself a violation of the contract.
• The contract expires. The Board of Governors authorizes the Board of Trustees to act as the ``employer'' of USF employees on Jan. 7, the same day the contract expired.
• Case dismissed. The Administration announces that it will not appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit the USF Board of Trustees filed against Al-Arian.
• The misconduct rule is changed. The rather sweeping misconduct rule, which was especially controversial because of the Al-Arian case, is revised amidst apologies by the Board and the Administration.
• The grievance hearing. On Jan. 24, the Provost's office held the first hearing in Al-Arian's grievance case. It was held off-campus because of a planned protest.
• More on Al-Najjar. Mazen Al-Najjar's family join him abroad.

On February 20, 2003, Sami Al-Arian was arrested on a 50-count indictment for violations of the racketeering and other federal laws. Al-Arian, the Department of Justice claimed, was one of those enablers who handle the nuts and bolts of a lethal organization. He did not commit the acts of terror himself, so the Department said, he merely made them possible. The case was built on a vast array of intercepted communications, but the way these communications were obtained, transcribed, translated, and interpreted threatened to make this, as one astute young fellow suggested (with depressing enthusiasm) the most complicated legal muddle since the O.J. trial.
The indictment immediately changed the politics and the legalities of the situation. Some of Al-Arian's critics claimed vindication, and went on an offensive against Muslims, academics, leftists, etc. It was a complicated moment for those, like the United Faculty of Florida, who had taken the more subtle position of supporting Al-Arian's rights. Such subtlety was lost as many people (including some who should have known better) saw the union's position as support for Al-Arian himself.