9/11 10 years later: USF campus rocked by 9/11 and Al-Arian
I had never been so happy in my life.
Between my steady paycheck from the USF Oracle and freelance gigs for the old Weekly Planet (now Creative Loafing) and various other music rags that have long since gone under, I could finally support myself solely from journalism in 2001.
A senior majoring in creative writing at the University of South Florida campus in Tampa, my life revolved around nothing more than reviewing music, interviewing musicians, authoring fiction, dating women and attempting to party like my heroes Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski. I spent many hours in the newsroom of our citywide-read daily college publication, but had no taste for politics in any form.
At the Oracle all I cared about was writing, designing and laying out my two-page entertainment section called Off Limits that ran on Thursdays.
On Sept. 6, 2001, Off Limits contained a feature story I did on a new (now defunct) independent record store called Look Hear and a page of record reviews. That week they ranged from a gushing review of a reissue of Kris Kristofferson’s classic, self-titled album to “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back: Music from the Motion Picture,” which I recommended for keg party listening.
My next byline in the Oracle archives appears Sept. 11 under the headline “Attacks shock USF.”
We rushed an edition out the day of the tragedy, which occurred on a Tuesday.
I recall being in the newsroom Monday working on a special Bob Dylan edition of Off Limits to run Sept. 13, two days after the release of his album “Love and Theft.”I had my section done that Monday night before joining some buddies from the sports section at the popular USF hangout The Greenery Pub. I eventually made it home to the apartment my buddy Darren Rizzo and I shared on Fletcher Avenue.
Still groggy from the night before, I picked up the phone the next morning to hear my best friend Chance Langford tell me to turn on the television.
Within minutes I drove to the Oracle newsroom.
I had never taken a journalism class or covered anything but entertainment before. But I knew that day things would change. The magnitude of the event, and what it meant to USF, wouldn’t sink in for a couple weeks.
For the Sept. 11 edition I wrote a history brief detailing the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and then interviewed a couple students.
“The people that are responsible for this should be held accountable,” Tarlos Rebello told me.
Jennifer Hills said, “It’s the worst thing that I have ever seen happen, anywhere ever. Terribly frightening.”
I also asked a member of the University Police about added security measures.
“We’re waiting on this information also,” Sgt. Mike Purcell said.
USF students and faculty held a vigil in the Special Events Center -- now the Marshall Student Center -- the day after the attack.
I didn’t attend.
But I did have a new appreciation for the world around me. I could no longer exist in my blissed-out bubble. Everyday after 9/11, I read virtually every inch of the Oracle. St. Petersburg Times, Tampa Tribune, Weekly Planet and whatever other periodical I could get my hands on.
On Sept. 12, my friend Selina Roman, an Oracle managing editor, wrote a piece titled “‘We shouldn’t be attacked.’” It marked my introduction to Sami Al-Arian, the most controversial figure to serve as a faculty member in the history of USF.
“Sami Al-Arian, USF engineering professor, knows what it’s like to be suspected of terrorist activities,” Roman wrote. “In 1995 federal investigators began to investigate Al-Arian and his ties to former USF adjunct professor Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, who became the leader of the Islamic Jihad, a known terrorist organization, after leaving USF in 1995.”
Al-Arian and Shallah were founding members of the World Islamic Studies Enterprise, a USF-affiliated think tank that federal authorities claimed was a front for terrorist groups, she explained. Al-Arian was absent from the USF campus for about two years while the investigation continued. USF reinstated him in 1998 when the investigation yielded little evidence. Al-Arian told Roman he hoped people wouldn’t assume anything about Muslims as many did after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
“No one should jump to conclusions until we know the facts,” Al-Arian said.
On Wednesday, Sept. 26, I was back in the Oracle newsroom. All the editors were. We were watching “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Bill O’Reilly grilled Al-Arian about, among other things, saying “Jihad is our path, victory to Islam, death to Israel,” during a 1988 speaking engagement in Cleveland.
Although I have been a staffer and editor at two prominent “alternative weeklies” during my decade-long journalism career, I have never been in a newsroom as liberal as The Oracle’s. After the show aired I was calling for Al-Arian’s firing while the other editors sympathized with him.
The next day we ran “A hotbed for terrorism” by another Oracle managing editor, Ryan Meehan. It recapped what had been aired on “The O’Reilly Factor,” along with Al-Arian’s version of the interview.
“The producers tricked me,” Al-Arian told Meehan. “I can’t believe these news organizations. They’re nuts.”
Sept. 27 also marked the publication of my first editorial column. I titled it, “To profile passengers or not to profile?”
“If an individual has nothing to conceal,” I wrote, “why would they have an issue with a background check before entering our country or boarding one of our airlines?”
It wasn’t my finest journalistic moment, but I stand by its basic message.
Sept. 11 and Al-Arian’s presence split the campus, especially the Oracle newsroom.
Talk used to be largely about where to grab a beer after putting the paper to bed. Post 9/11, it became a battlefield of words. I learned after a month or so to walk away from heated arguments about Al-Arian, Americans, Muslims and Jews, and concentrate on my entertainment editor duties.
But I would never be able to return to a life that solely centered around pop culture. The world had been transformed. And so had I.
Incidentally, in 2010 when my former employer published “A decade of news: The Oracle highlights its top 10 stories,” Al-Arian’s arrest ranked No. 1.
“Former USF engineering professor Sami Al-Arian was arrested at his home by FBI agents and charged with helping the Palestinian Islamic Jihad by funding terrorist attacks in Israel,” reads the Feb. 2003 story.
“Al-Arian, who was fired by USF, faced 17 charges but was acquitted on eight and pled guilty to one count of conspiracy.”
Al-Arian eventually served 13 months in prison and remains under house arrest in Virginia. He awaits trial on criminal contempt charges.
Wade Tatangelo, features writer/columnist, can be reached at (941) 745-7057. Visit his blog at heraldbuzzworthy.blogspot.com.
This story was originally published September 5, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "9/11 10 years later: USF campus rocked by 9/11 and Al-Arian."