Rollins Scandal
- Don Juice
- Apr 12, 2017
- 5 min read
A recent incident at Rollins College caused much controversy when news broke about a student named Marshall Polston being suspended after he was accused of stalking and harassing a Middle Eastern Studies professor named Areej Zufari. But after these charges were filed they were eventually dropped and he was allowed to attend school again. There’s a lot of he said she said rhetoric surrounding the whole incident so what I’m going to do is take a detailed look into both of these individuals and give you my view at the end.
Mr. Polston is a republican congressional staff member of the House of Representatives and he also runs a conservative radio network. This semester at Rollins College Polston was taking Ms. Zufari's class and according to the injunction against him, she started complaints on February 3rd on (page 11) of the injunction. She complained that he was disrupting her class even after she spoke with him and wanted the procedures for removing him. On Feburary 8th on (page 12) he was spoken to by the Dean and he agreed to modify his behavior and present his ideas more appropriately. (page 14) On February 22nd, Professor Areej emailed the associate Dean pleased with whatever talks were given to him due to it seeming like it actually worked and she states that he is being respectful and engaging in the class and she’s satisfied. There’s a couple more emails of her stating that the class is going well until we get to (page 15) march 7th where she is concerned because she gave him a failing grade and not sure how he would react so she is expecting backlash. March 9th on (page 7) that prophecy comes true when he sends her an angry email calling her incompetent, theological apologist, questions her academic knowledge and character among other things and threatens to get friendly media personalities involved. (page 9) On the same day later that night he is spoken to by the Dean who had to cancel the class since Professor Areej is too scared to show up. Polston also complains that a Muslim student in the class joked about beheadings and nothing happened to him but if he would of mentioned guns he would've been arrested. The Dean stated he failed to come to them about any problem that he was having with the professor as he was instructed previously. March 8th (page 6) college staff member Ken Miller reports that he has contacted UF to see what they knew about this particular student and come to find out he has a past. He is not on good standing at that university, has a deferred suspension, had issues with others on campus and went through their conduct office and found out that there is an active investigation on him involving his behavior with a female student. (page 5) On March 18th a student emails the school concerning Mr. Polston because he Facebook messaged her a confusing and threatening message accusing her of not accepting his friend request because of his political views. March 22nd (page 19) Professor Areej is contacted by a journalist through cellphone regarding a student's remarks on sharia law and violence against gays and asked why she didn’t condemn these remarks. This text message was taken by professor Areej as the threat Polston stated earlier when he said he would bring in media personalities he knew. This was the final straw and she filed the injunction after that incident. According to his reinstatement letter, the school felt that while he actually didn’t cross the threshold of code violation, he has been disruptive and disrespectful to the faculty and staff and they expected him to change from that time on.
Now you would expect that this is to be over, but it’s not because Professor Areej is connected with some sketchy people and also has a checkered past. If you take a look at a 2007 lawsuit filed against her by Rosine Collin Ghawji. Rosine was married to Maher Ghawji and on (page 3) and he is accused of trying to take their kids to Syria, hates Jews and Americans, wants the kids to blow themselves up for god and threatened to kill her among many other disturbing allegations. (page 4) We learn that Zufari is his mistress and maybe his wife and she is the spokeswoman for the Islamic Society of Central Florida which has allegations of supporting terrorism. But it gets more disturbing than that because on (page 10) we learn that in 2003 a Islamic foundation held a 3 day conference and invited Sheikh Abdur-Rahman Al-Sudais, the chief cleric of The Grand Mosque in Mecca. The problem with him is that he wants to murder Jews and has unfavorable views on non-Muslims. His appearance was cancelled due to negative press and Zufari defends him by stating “attempted censorship of the speakers is un-American."
Now, my view of all this is the Professor took the wrong route when she wanted a restraining order. Removing this student from her class is one thing but claiming stalking is reaching considering the fact that the cyber stalking was just a journalist asking questions (not Mr. Polston) and it wasn’t like the guy was threatening to break into her house he was technically just “doing his job”. With that being said, the way Mr. Polston acted was absurd because if you feel a professor is biased against you, the best thing to do is to go to the Dean or at least record it and take it to the school staff that deals with these types of incidents instead of confronting her through e-mail. And based on his past, he seems to have a history of looking for confrontation and easily gets upset when things don't go his way like the way he verbally attacked the girl over Facebook who didnt accept his friend request. Areej Zufari situation involving the people she's associated with is also very disturbing because if the allegations are true in the lawsuit, why in the hell would she want to be a mistress to a man who wants his kids to be suicide bombers? I can’t even begin to explain how insane that is. And if she is OK with inviting radical Islamic clerics into the country and is connected to groups that could be associated with terrorism, then what does that say about her? It shows she has real issues that even her colleagues are unaware of. All of this is a reminder that every day you walk and interact with people who sometimes live strange lives. As I was typing this I just discovered a update to the story. The Professor resigned due to threats she was getting and the school decided the grade Polston received on his paper was appropriate and that he was suspended not because of the situation with the professor but the Facebook messages to the student that I talked about. This was a very interesting story with many twists.
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