The AP reports that Debbie Almontaser, the principal at New York’s first Arabic-themed school, has lost round 1 in her battle to get her job back after she caused an uproar over her use of the word “intifada.”
From the wires:
NEW YORK (AP) _ The founding principal of the city’s first Arabic-themed school, forced out over comments she made to a newspaper about the word “intifada,” is not entitled to get her job back, a judge said in a preliminary ruling Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein said Debbie Almontaser’s free-speech rights were not violated because she made the comments in her role as acting principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn. Her employer, the city, has a responsibility to supervise and monitor its messages to the public, he said.
Almontaser had sued schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. She stepped down under pressure in August after she was criticized for not condemning the use of the word “intifada” on a T-shirt made by a youth organization. Instead she discussed the history of the Arabic term, which is commonly used to refer to the Palestinian uprising against Israel.
Almontaser said the meaning of her words was distorted after she told a reporter that “intifada” stemmed from a root word meaning “shake off” and that the word has different meanings for different people but certainly implies violence to many, especially in connection with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
The judge noted that she had been instructed by the press staff for the schools not to discuss the T-shirts. He rejected her requests to be reinstated and to stop the city from looking for a new principal.
