USF prof still keeps Al-Arian archive

Posted Sep 12, 2011 by Lindsay Peterson

Updated Sep 12, 2011 at 04:10 PM

It’s hard to imagine the strife that USF endured in the past decade, starting soon after Sept. 11, 2001, when Bill O’Reilly invited a USF computer science professor onto his Fox News show.

The professor, Sami Al-Arian, had started a think tank in 1991 to bring attention to Palestinian issues. He was a brutally harsh critic of Israel, though he’d quieted down by the mid 1990s.

O’Reilly replayed some of Al-Arian’s most fiery speeches. The next day, phones at USF were ringing off the hook. And in 2003, when the government accused Al-Arian of leading a Palestinian terrorist group, USF fired him.

The Tribune revisited that turbulent time in a story on Sunday.

If you didn’t live through it, you probably don’t know what happened.

But you need to, says USF professor Greg McColm, who sees the events of the Al-Arian years as a fundamental part of what USF is now.

Early on in the controversy McColm began keeping an archive, and it’s going today.

If you want to delve into this piece of USF’s history, go here.

Fresh eyes may bring clarity to this still-murky time.