Posted on 12/14/2004 6:32:49 AM PST by the_devils_advocate_666
A Morgantown couple fired from their jobs at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in May filed a lawsuit against the agency last week, saying they were discriminated against because of their Iranian background and Islamic faith.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Aliakbar and Shahla Afshari, released information about the lawsuit Monday.
According to co-counsel Robert Bastress, a WVU law professor and cooperating attorney with the ACLU, the Afsharis went to work May 5 and were told they had failed a background check. The couple was then escorted from the laboratories. Seven months later, they still do not know why they were fired.
"The Afsharis were fired without any notice, without any procedures, and without any reason," Bastress said Monday. "The Afsharis allege that they have been discriminated against because of their Iranian heritage and their Muslim faith and because of the association they've had within the Muslim community."
According to the Afsharis' complaint filed against officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the parent agency of NIOSH, the Afsharis are seeking back pay and Aliakbar's reinstatement to his job as a senior fellow. The lawsuit, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, also seeks a hearing to clear the Afsharis' names.
The suit also names the CDC and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Bastress said the Afsharis came to Morgantown in 1987, when Aliakbar Afshari entered the industrial engineering doctorate program at WVU. He began working for NIOSH in 1996 as a contract worker, and his wife started a year later. The two were hired as full-time employees in 2000.
At the time they were hired, the Afsharis passed background checks as part of their employment application, Bastress said. They were fired because they failed to pass a secret background investigation that was conducted on employees from countries considered a threat to the United States, including Iran, according to a news release from the ACLU in West Virginia.
Aliakbar Afshari built equipment to study the health effects of welding and asphalt fumes, and hand and arm vibrations. Shahla Afshari, who has a master's degree in occupational health and safety engineering, worked in a laboratory that researched sensitivity to chemicals in the work place, such as allergic reactions to latex gloves.
Neither had access to classified documents or worked with banned biological or chemical toxins. Their jobs did not require a security clearance. Both are legal residents of the United States and were within a few years of attaining citizenship.
"More than anything, they want to clear their name so they can find future employment," Bastress said. "At the moment, it's extremely difficult for someone like Dr. Afshari to get employment when he has to present that he is an Iranian who has been fired by the government because he presented a security risk. They just want their life back."
CDC spokeswoman Kathy Harben said Monday that she could not comment on the lawsuit. She confirmed only that the Afsharis were no longer employed by the CDC.
When reached at his home, Aliakbar Afshari declined to comment, referring The Dominion Post to the family's attorney, Allan Karlin, who also is a cooperating attorney with the ACLU.
Karlin said the loss of their jobs has been a hardship for the Afshari family. Until they were fired, the Afsharis were considered valued employees at NIOSH in Morgantown. About 30 of the Afsharis' coworkers have written letters on their behalf.
This fall, Shahla Afshari entered WVU dental school with her daughter, Azadeh, the first time a mother-daughter team has entered the school in the same year. Aliakbar continues to look for work in his field.
Karlin said that the Afsharis' firing was unfair and violated their civil rights. He said that what happened to the Afsharis should not have a place in a country founded on freedom of expression.
"The United States holds itself out as a place where individuals are treated fairly with due process of law regardless of their religion or ethnicity," he said. "The treatment of the Afsharis is inconsistent with those ideals and contrary to the image of America that we portray to the world."
Yeah. You see, that was before a bunch of Muslim, Middle Eastern, Arab, Etc, Etc. I'm not really interested in the image we portray to the world. The rest of the world needs to understand that we don't have to take their crap and that they can just stay home if they don't feel respected here.
Don't care, Not interested. I will give the benefit of the doubt to the company trying to operate safely every time. EVERY SINGLE TIME. If it turns out that they were wrong, then fine, but I won't jump all over them just because the ACLU scumbags cry foul, and I won't moderate my view point just to pretend that I'm objective. I'm not. I believe in erring on the side of caution, and if some people's feelings get hurt, so be it. Safety first for our citizens. Foriegn residents come second. And a distant second at that.
The rest of the world needs to understand that we don't have to take their crap and that they can just stay home if they don't feel respected here.<<<
Along with the rest of the world, our domestic liberals, "live and let live" and "they got rights" crowd needs to understand that as well.
I agree, even if the background check only returns the fact that they are not sure if they are a threat, that is good enough for me. Innocent until proven guilty, a threat until proven secure.
So, if I don't like somebody and they just happen to be middle easterners, then I can fire them. Or better yet, this guy's a middle easterner, he must be a threat. I'm Irtanian-American, a conservative and support our president and the Patriot Act. But the Patriot Act is for the Government to apply, not for private organizations. You sound as if it doesn't matter the reason as long as they were middle easterners. If I'm wrong I apologize.
Have you ever noticed that these people don't give a damn about the rights of American citizens? No one ever sticks up for my right to live in this country (where I was born) peacefully and without fear of being blown up on an airplane or in the mall. The hell with their rights!
Yes, you're wrong. The story says that the background check, the second one, found something suspicious. Since that is all the story says, I have to give the benefit to the company because their acting in AMERICA's best interest. If their wrong, then the worst thing that can happen is they apologise, and reinstate the guy with full back pay. He'll get over it.
Remember, we didn't attack Muslims, they attacked us. When that happened the rules changed. And because of the hatred and ignorrance of some, others will be inconvenienced, and in some cases discriminated against. It's not always right, but I support a company trying to protect itself. Hell, who wants to lose everything they have in a terrorist attack and then have the lawyers sue them for not being more proactive in their hiring processes and allowing terrorists to continue working there.
Very good. Where can I get the bumper sticker?
What did you do? Burp?
NIOSH is not a private corporation. It's the Gubbmint.
See, there you go. I didn't say that. It's towel heads. JUST KIDDING!!! I'M KIDDING!!!
I can tell you and them why they were fired.
They failed [did not pass] the background investigation.
Great post! I agree completely.
They were probably hired contingent upon a favorable security review. If they didn't get it, they get gone.
An article with more detail that answers some of the questions posted here. It's pretty hard not to see this as a violation of our country's principles and traditions (things that we, as conservatives, should be fighting for). The guy's no terrorist, and goof-ups like this just weaken the government's credibility when they need it because they've found a real terrorist. I've generally not been a fan of the ACLU (especially when they mess around with people's religious freedoms) but that just makes it all the more embarassing that these people had to turn to the ACLU to be defended. There should have been conservative groups out there to help. Anyway, here's the article:
Mystery Cloaks Couple's Firing as Risks to U.S.
December 12, 2004
By JAMES DAO
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - May 5, the day that changed Aliakbar and Shahla Afshari's lives, began like most others. They shared coffee, dropped their 12-year-old son off at Cheat Lake Middle School here, then drove to their laboratories at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a federal agency that studies workplace hazards.
But that afternoon, their managers pulled the Afsharis aside and delivered a stunning message: they had failed secret background checks and were being fired. No explanations were offered and no appeals allowed. They were escorted to the door and told not to return.
Mrs. Afshari, a woman not prone to emotional flourishes, says she stood in the parking lot and wept. "I just wanted to know why," she said.
Seven months later, the Afsharis, Shiite Muslims who came from Iran 18 years ago to study, then stayed to build careers and raise three children, still have no answers.
They have been told they were fired for national security reasons that remain secret. When their lawyer requested the documents used to justify the action, he was told none existed. When he asked for copies of the agency's policies relating to the background checks, he received a generic personnel handbook.
Without any official explanations of why they failed their background checks, they came up with their own theory: their attendance, more than five years ago, at two conventions of a Persian student association that has come under F.B.I. scrutiny, once with a man who was later investigated by the bureau.
The Afsharis' case comes at time when immigrants from many nations, but particularly Islamic ones, are facing tougher scrutiny from government agencies.
Unable to clear their names or find new employment in their field, the Afsharis on Thursday resorted to that most American of recourses: they sued the institute and its parent agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services, demanding back pay and reinstatement or the chance to appeal.
The Afsharis, who passed background checks when they were hired - he in 1996, she in 1997 - were not even aware of the new reviews until they were told that they had failed.
In their suit, they do not question the government's right to conduct background checks. But their lawyers contend that the Kafkaesque nature of the process - in which the rules were unclear and perhaps unwritten - has made it impossible for them to defend themselves.
"How can we expect the people of the Middle East to emulate our democratic ideals abroad when we fail to apply those ideals to people like the Afsharis here?" asked Allan N. Karlin, a lawyer in Morgantown who, along with chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union in West Virginia and Washington, is representing the couple.
The Centers for Disease Control has said the Afsharis were not singled out because of their ethnic background, asserting that other Iranians and Muslims have faced similar background checks and passed. The agency also notes that the couple, who are not citizens and do not have protected Civil Service status, could have been fired at any time.
But the agency has declined to say anything else about the case and did not respond to questions about its policies on background checks. "All I can say is the Afsharis are no longer employed by C.D.C.," said a spokeswoman, Kathryn Harben.
Federal employees have always faced routine background checks, typically when they are hired. But experts say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, checks at certain agencies, including the disease control centers, have become more frequent and tougher as the government attempts to identify potential security leaks or spies with access to classified or dangerous materials.
Those tougher checks seem to have focused on immigrants from certain countries. A C.D.C. document obtained by the Afsharis shows that the recent background checks on them were ordered because they came from a "threat" country, Iran.
But what is most confounding to the Afsharis is how the government could consider them threats in the first place. Neither had access to classified documents or worked with banned biological or chemical toxins.
Moreover, none of their research was secret, much of it having been published in scholarly journals or presented at academic conferences.
Mr. Afshari, 52, who has a doctorate in industrial engineering, built equipment to study the health effects of things like asphalt fumes, human saliva and dust particles. One of his inventions helped analyze the sound of the human cough. He also worked with commercially available lasers and ultrasound equipment.
Mrs. Afshari, 43, who has a master's degree in occupational health and safety, worked in a laboratory that researched allergic reactions to common items like latex gloves and hand cleansers.
Handling classified documents or banned toxins requires a higher security clearance than the Afsharis possessed. Indeed, neither of them had ever applied for such clearances, which entail more intensive background investigations than the standard checks conducted on most federal workers.
Paradoxically, federal law grants people who apply for such clearances more rights than the Afsharis were given, experts say. Under cold-war-era regulations, people who fail such clearances can request internal documents explaining the reasons and are entitled to hearings where they can present a defense.
"What we have here is a brand-new, ad hoc, secret system," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil liberties group, referring to the checks that led to the firings.
Friends and former colleagues say the Afsharis, though practicing Shiites who shun alcohol and worry about the permissiveness of American society, are anything but religious firebrands.
Mr. Afshari, a gregarious, chatty, bearlike man, was known to bring kosher turkeys to Thanksgiving dinners at Jewish homes and spend weekends repairing colleagues' cars for nothing. When his daughter, Azadeh, now 22 and a first-year student at West Virginia University's dental school here, decided to stop wearing a head scarf a few years ago, he did not protest, friends said.
The Afsharis' two eldest children, who were born in Iran but consider themselves Americans, have become well-known figures in Morgantown. Azadeh was a dean's list student, a campus government leader and a finalist for homecoming queen last year. Her brother Hamed, 21, a senior at the university, is also an honor student and a member of the student government. Their youngest child, Amin, 12, was born in America.
Robert C. Creese, a professor of engineering who was Mr. Afshari's doctoral adviser at West Virginia University, described Mr. Afshari as a pacifist who was appalled by the devastation wrought by Iran's decade-long war with Iraq. Mr. Afshari's younger brother was killed by mustard gas in that conflict.
"I fear a serious mistake has been made by C.D.C.," Dr. Creese said in one of nearly two dozen letters delivered to the agency that former colleagues have written to protest the Afsharis' firings.
The Afsharis contend that their only link to the student group under federal scrutiny, the Muslim Students Association (Persian Speaking Group), is that they took their children to national conventions in Chicago in December 1998 and Washington in December 1999.
Senior officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including the former director Louis J. Freeh, have said the group, sometimes referred to by the Farsi name Anjoman Islamie, is made up largely of anti-American fanatics, maintains close ties to the government of Iran and has been used as a front for Iranian intelligence. But it is not on the State Department's list of banned foreign terrorist organizations, and it operates openly in the United States.
The Persian student group is independent of the larger Muslim Students Association, a mainly Sunni group.
To the Afsharis, the conventions were an opportunity to speak Persian, eat Iranian food, attend workshops on Islam and meet other Iranian-Americans at a time of the year when many Americans were celebrating Christmas.
"We loved it because it was a chance to meet kids from our culture," Azadeh Afshari said. "We pushed our parents to go."
Mr. Afshari said the F.B.I. became aware of his family's trips to the conventions after an agent interviewed him in late 2001 about an Iranian friend, a graduate student who had been active in the association. The man, Shahab Ghasemzadeh, was deported for immigration violations last year, Mr. Karlin, the Afsharis' lawyer, said.
In a statement to an immigration court last year, an F.B.I. agent said Mr. Ghasemzadeh "may pose a long-term threat" to the United States because of his association with Anjoman Islamie. As evidence, the agent said Mr. Ghasemzadeh had attended the group's conventions (he went to one of them with the Afsharis), and had helped Iranian-Americans vote in Iranian elections.
It remains unclear if Mr. Afshari's friendship with Mr. Ghasemzadeh was the reason he failed the background check. But if it was, the Afsharis' lawyers say, his firing would be a case of guilt by association and a violation of the First Amendment rights they enjoy as legal permanent residents.
"This looks suspiciously like the witch hunts of the 50's, this time targeted against Muslim Americans," Ms. Martin of the Center for National Security Studies said.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Afshari's unemployment benefits ran out. He has not found work, and the family is now living on savings and credit cards. Mrs. Afshari has begun dental school with Azadeh but says she does not know if they can afford the tuition.
Mr. Afshari has become sullen and withdrawn, his children said. Though his father in Iran is ill, Mr. Afshari has decided not to visit him, fearing he will not be allowed to return to the United States.
"Everybody has a sense of pride about their parents," Hamed Afshari said, breaking into tears. "And then someone disrespects them like that and it hurts so bad because there is nothing you can do."
The case has also affected the Afsharis' friends, who say they remain mystified and angry about the way the couple has been treated.
"I've told Ali's story to a lot of people," said Travis Goldsmith, a computer engineer who worked with Mr. Afshari. "They don't believe that this could happen in this country."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/national/12shiite.html?ex=1103888439&ei=1&en=c7117e49305774eb
hushpad: "Better safe than sorry with those from the ME."
Well, actually, no. It's long been one of this country's greatest principles that we care more about liberty than security. (cf. NH State Motto, Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death." etc.) Of course, there are plenty of countries out there (China, Russia, much of the Middle East) where they put security before people's freedom, but I thought we were trying to change that. How can we tell Iraqis that freedom is worth risking insecurity, but then break that principle back home?
And before someone reminds me that 9-11 happened, I know that, and I also knew someone who died in it. But we can't just live our lives in fear and let that break our principles and our ideals. (And even if we did that, we still couldn't guarantee security. There's no way to make terrorism impossible. It's naive to think so.)
It's ridiculous to treat all Muslims with suspicion because of 9-11. Should we have treated all white ex-Army males with suspicion after Oklahoma City?
As conservatives, we, of all people, should remember and try to live up to what Benjamin Franklin (or one of his colleagues) said: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
If the facts as reported play out, then this family was hosed.
However, I would caution against citing the New York Times as a source of factual reporting on a topic such as this. They are not known as particularly critical thinkers, nor are they known for balanced reporting.
"I do not fear those from the ME! But lets face it, their ideals and principles DO NOT measure up to ours, and until they do, they are suspect.
"The Oklahoma City Reference holds water as well as a broken vase. At least McVee (sp?) was a domestic criminal that we could prosecute and KILL."
In response to your first comment, I'm glad you don't fear those from the ME. But since you don't, what reason is there for being willing to deport anyone who happens to be originally from there on very slight and possibly mistaken suspicion, without giving them a chance to rebut any evidence that there might be against them? When you say that 'their' ideals and principles do not measure up to ours, who is the 'they' that you are referring to? Saudis? Sunni Muslims? Arabic speakers, (whether Muslim or Christian)? Even if all three, none of these categories would apply to Afshari, who's a Shia Muslim Farsi-speaking Iranian. How can you know what _his_ ideals and principles are? I know some Iranians who came to the US, and they all did so because they believed in _this_ country's ideals and principles and wanted to live by them. Our ideals and principles won't last long if we keep turning away people who believe in them.
The point that I was (perhaps badly, as you point out) trying to make with the Oklahoma City reference, was essentially that the 'they' you're referring to is too broad. Everyone from the ME? Certainly the 9-11 hijackers came from the ME, but should that make everyone from the ME suspect? That's something around a billion people (depending on who exactly gets included in your 'they'), treated with a presumption of suspicion because of the crimes of less than a hundred. Does that make sense? Whenever anyone commits a terrible crime, he always comes from a background, comes from a specific region, had a certain career, had certain friends, etc. But should everyone else who shares those with him share his guilt, or be under a preseumption of suspicion?
While my OK City example may not have held water very well, I don't think your counterargument did a very good job of further shattering it. Of course McVeigh was a domestic criminal that we could prosecute and kill. And the 9-11 hijackers were also criminals who were on US soil at the time. We could prosecute and kill them too, if they were still alive. But the question is whether people who grew up with McVeigh should be held under suspicion along with McVeigh, as you're suggesting we do to all the people who grew up in the same (very large and very varied) geographical region as the 9-11 hijackers. If the next terrorist attack is committed by an Irishman, should we fire/expel/deport all the Irishmen here? Or should we (more realistically) try to find anyone who might be planning terrorist attacks, but recognize that the vast majority of Irishmen had nothing to do with the criminal?
Thanks for reading,
B.
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