"Flanders is aiding the FBI in weeding through the thousands of tips the office has received since 9/11," said UMass Police Chief Barbara O'Connor. The work is overwhelming, and it is important for local and federal police to cooperate and share information." O'Connor said that UMass is participating because the university police department is an arm of the state and part of its public duty is to contribute on a regional level.
According to The Globe, other large public universities, such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Colorado at Boulder, report similar relationships, although most devote only a few days or hours a month to anti-terrorism work. According to O'Connor, this type of task force work is not unusual for university police, as officers often work with federal narcotics teams.
According to President Tom Gerety, the College has not been in communication with the FBI. "So far this is going on at UMass," he said. "We have not heard anything here yet."
Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the FBI urged local police to cooperate with regional anti-terrorism task forces. But such partnerships are particularly sensitive at educational institutions, where the FBI's intrusiveness during the 1950's and 60's still lingers in the memories of some older professors. According to The Globe, many professors have raised concerns about past FBI abuses, including interrogations intended to intimidate people holding allegedly "un-American" views during the McCarthy era, and infiltrating political organizations during the anti-Vietnam war movement.
Some professors are concerned that this type of collaboration violates academic freedom, especially after the revelation in November that Flanders helped a federal agent question an Iraqi-born economics professor at UMass, M.J. Alhabeeb, about his political views. The FBI was acting on a tip from someone connected to the local community television station where Alhabeeb is a member of the board of directors. In a statement to The Globe, Dan Clawson, a professor of sociology at UMass, said, "Universities exist to follow ideas, and to explore things that may not be popular at that moment, and to question ideas that people hold dear. Anything that tends to limit that attacks the heart of the university."
In response to the questioning, students and faculty organized a forum in protest, drawing nearly 200 people. Most of the panelists at the forum, titled "The FBI versus the People," spoke about the history of the FBI and its intimidation of citizens.
According to The Globe, the American Civil Liberties Union, concerned about the questioning of the UMass professor, is demanding that the FBI reveal the scope of its involvement on college campuses nationwide under the Freedom of Information Act.
But O'Connor emphasized that the questioning was not an interrogation. "The FBI questioned that professor because they were following up on a specific tip they received from the public. The FBI would be negligent if they didn't follow up on every tip."
O'Connor further defended the assignment. "The focus of Detective Flanders's work is not on UMass," she said. "He is not assigned to spy on or monitor UMass students or faculty." If a UMass officer were not on the task force, she said, the FBI could investigate on campus without her knowledge. She also emphasized that the assignment is at-will, meaning that it is not permanent, and that Flanders's duties at the university would supersede his FBI investigations.
However, some at UMass remain skeptical. In an interview with The Globe, Milton Cantor, a history professor at UMass said "Given the climate outside the FBI, I think that it's entirely predictable that the FBI will be intrusive."