In September 2001, the administration of the University of South Florida placed the tenured associate professor of computer science whose case was the subject of AAUP's investigation on leave of absence in September 2001 to ensure his safety. He had been threatened with violence following his interview on a national television show in which he was accused, in the aftermath of September 11, of supporting terrorism. That December, however, the university president notified the professor of her intent to dismiss him. While acknowledging that the professor, who has long championed the Palestinian cause, had the right to speak his mind, her chief charge held him responsible for disruptive activities by others who were intensely hostile to his public remarks. This charge led the AAUP's general secretary to authorize an investigation. The investigating committee visited the university in March 2002 and advised the president, who had not gone beyond issuance of notification of intent to dismiss, that the administration would be ill served if it proceeded with dismissal on the basis of the stated charge. In its subsequent report, the committee concluded that dismissing the professor on the grounds stated would have violated his right to free extramural expression under the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.
At the time of the investigating committee's March visit, the professor continued to be on paid leave of absence. The administrative officers confirmed that his presence on the campus would no longer pose a threat to safety. The investigating committee, observing that the professor's absence from his campus responsibilities had become an imposed suspension, advised the administration that it had no apparent valid reason for continuing the suspension and that, unless it demonstrated cause for dismissing him, it should allow him to return to his campus responsibilities as soon as possible. Committee A at its meeting in June 2002 issued an interim statement urging reinstatement of the professor to his academic responsibilities no later than the new academic year in August.
Instead, in August the administration brought suit against him, seeking a declaratory judicial judgment that new grounds it wished to propose for dismissing him would be legally permissible. The court rejected the administration's move. The investigating committee's subsequent report concluded that the administration had attempted to circumvent required academic procedures as called for in the 1940 Statement of Principles and the complementary 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings.
The suspension of the professor was allowed to continue well into its second year, with no apparent end in sight. Committee A decided to proceed with the publication of the investigating committee's report, and in mid-February a draft text was sent to the concerned parties at the University of South Florida for their comments. The text concluded that the unconscionably long suspension had become tantamount to a dismissal for cause without affording the professor requisite safeguards of academic due process.
On February 20, a week after the draft text was distributed, federal authorities charged the professor in a fifty-count indictment with criminal conspiracy against the United States through his alleged activities as a key official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (which the Department of State has designated as a terrorist organization). The professor was jailed, denied bond, and remains in custody as preparations for trial go forward.
Six days after his arrest, and following consultation with members of his department and of the faculty senate, the university president acted to dismiss him. The administration stated that it based its action on information in the indictment that "confirmed" its belief that the professor had abused his university position by using its name and resources in the furtherance of "improper, non-educational purposes." The chair of Committee A, in an update written for the investigating committee's published report, emphasized that the criminal charges against the professor remain to be proven. The chair stated that the professor had been dismissed without any opportunity to defend himself against the university administration's charges, and that "the principle of 'innocent until proven guilty' ought to be observed in our institutions of higher learning no less than it is in our courts."
Committee A condemns the administration's actions against the professor that have been summarized in this statement, up to his indictment on February 20. Committee A does not view the professor's arrest and incarceration as excusing the administration's grave departures from Association-supported standards of academic due process, notably, by continuing to suspend him without demonstrable cause, by suing him to obtain a declaratory judgment to justify the dismissal, and by then dismissing him without affording him a pre-termination hearing. These actions resulted in serious professional harm to the professor.
In evaluating this highly complex and disturbing case, however, the committee has had to consider other significant factors. The president of the university, in her published response to the investigating committee's report, acknowledged that a hearing before a committee of faculty peers should precede any dismissal action, that existing policies had no provision for such a hearing, and that no such hearing was afforded to the professor. She reported that a resolution recently approved by the faculty senate calls for a faculty hearing before issuance of notice of actual or intended dismissal, and that the administration has agreed to the resolution's implementation. The president also pointed out that the professor could have a hearing under university procedures for post-dismissal grievance and arbitration.
The professor filed a grievance, but he has requested that academic proceedings be deferred pending the outcome of his criminal case. Parties to the criminal case predict, however, that preparation for trial and the trial itself are likely to take years. Committee A thus recognizes that academic proceedings in the professor's case, assured by the administration and held in abeyance at the professor's request, are most unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future.
Committee A believes there to be no reasonable remedial action that it can request the administration to take at this time despite the harms suffered by the professor. Because of these unique circumstances, the committee makes no recommendation to the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting regarding the University of South Florida.