Iranian couple files lawsuit against NIOSH - ACLU alleges discrimination

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."

"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."

Thanks for the reply. Certainly the NY Times has a bias, and you have to bear that in mind when reading that (it's a good idea when reading anything, really), but even reading between the lines, and ignoring emotionalized language and so on, the bare facts of the case should appall us. Here's another version of the story, from the WVU paper. Note what the FBI eventually ends up admitting about Afshari's daughter who was told she'd have to transfer away from NIOSH to finish her internship (that they don't have any files on her at all) and what Afshari tells people who apologize to him (that they should still be proud of America). This kind of guy isn't our enemy, and he shouldn't have to turn to the ACLU for protection. It hurts our cause when this happens Here's the article, and even if you ignore everything that's subjective or opinion-based in it, the facts are pretty damning:

Monday Dec 13, 2004
Headline News
Muslim couple challenges firing from NIOSH

By Billy Wolfe
Staff Writer
danewsroom@mail.wvu.edu

A local Muslim couple claims that they were wrongly fired from their jobs at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health last May because of their ethnic background and religious faith, according to a complaint filed in Washington D.C. District Court last week.

Aliakbar Afshari and his wife, Shala Azadi, claim they began worrying about their jobs last May when their daughter, Azadeh Afshari, was asked to bring her passport with her to NIOSH, where she was doing an internship in exercise physiology. A week later, she was told she would have to complete her internship at Mylan Pharmaceuticals. They say no reason was given for their daughter's termination. On May 5, Aliakbar and Azadi were escorted off the NIOSH premises by their supervisors, and told not to report back to work because they had failed a Homeland Security-ordered background check.

The Afsharis, who are permanent American residents, did not know a background check was in progress, and neither did their supervisors. According to Aliakbar, his supervisor cried when he fired him.

The termination surprised all NIOSH employees, especially the Afsharis, who claim they have no criminal history to warrant alarm from Homeland Security.

"I don't have so much as a traffic ticket," said Azadi, who blames the paranoia of a post-9/11 America for her termination. "Security is good, but they've taken this too far. They're rushing to label everybody."

When they asked to see documentation of the background check, the Afsharis were told it was classified. Their lawyer, Allan Karlin, then filed under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain it. The FBI then said they had no files in Washington, but were looking in other places, according to Karlin.

Later, FBI officials said they possessed no files at all on Azadi, Karlin said.

Aliakbar passed a background check, which is standard for all federal employees, when he began working at NIOSH in 1989. Azadi passed a background check in 1997.

Dhoki Fassihian, executive director of the National Iranian American Council, was contacted by Karlin during the summer, because the NIAC documents discrimination against Iranians. She says she feels that what the Afsharis are facing is "the most egregious act of discrimination" her group has encountered so far.

"It sounded so unreal and severe. These people were just fired and given no reason," Fassihian said. Fassihian also said that the government is unfairly enforcing policies against middle-easterners.

"An Iranian immigrant simply faces stricter enforcement of security laws than say, a Honduran immigrant," she said. Their termination letters were signed by William Porter, director of the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness, and Equal Opportunity Employment Officer, Thedford Lee.

The letters state that the Afsharis can contact Lee for more information regarding this issue. According to Aliakbar, he has yet to reach Lee by calling the number provided. Neither Lee, nor the offices of OSEP wished to comment on the case. While the lawsuit states that coworkers were instructed not to write recommendation letters regarding the Afsharis' job performance, many of them wrote letters of support to Karlin. Karlin has received more than 30 written statements from members of the community who wrote of the upstanding characters of Aliakbar and Azadi.

The couple says they are impressed by the affection shown to them during this period in their lives. According to Aliakbar, some coworkers came to him saying they were ashamed to be Americans.

"I told them they should never be ashamed of their country," he said. Karlin said nothing in their job descriptions called for a special security clearance. He added that no one working at the Morgantown NIOSH facility possesses one. The Afsharis say the termination has had a paralyzing effect on their family. Azadi, who is attending dental school at West Virginia University, is doing so on a loan. Both are unemployed and living on unemployment checks and the savings they have accrued over the years.

They both continue to search for new jobs, but aren't finding any success. "I've been given no reason for being fired. I've done nothing wrong but if you're an employer, and you can choose to hire someone without all this mess, then you will," said Azadi.

"They have been backed into a corner where they can't defend themselves. He (Aliakbar) has a Ph.D. What is he to do, flip burgers?" said Karlin.

Aliakbar got his green card five years ago. He would have been eligible this year to become a true citizen. Now he fears he won't be granted citizenship. According to Fassihian, her group has received many reports of eligible Iranians waiting since 1998 and earlier to be granted citizenship. She says the discrimination against the Iranian American community isn't getting any better.

Even though the Afsharis were not citizens, Karlin says that as permanent residents working as service fellows for the government, they had the same job protection rights as an American citizen.

Karlin, as well as lawyers from the WVU College of Law, and the American Civil Liberties Union are suing for back-pay, compensation, and for Aliakbar to be reinstated to his job. The Afsharis hope to clear their names with the lawsuit. While he misses getting paid, Aliakbar said he also misses having a job which enabled him to help people. As a scientist working for the government, Aliakbar once built a machine that could analyze an individual's cough, and diagnose that person if he/she was ill.

While Aliakbar says he has no idea why this happened, the lawsuit states that he is being persecuted for associating with "other Muslims engaged in lawful activities."

Fassihian disagrees. She said it is because most Americans don't differentiate between Iraqi and Iranian Americans, but added that it wouldn't be right to discriminate against an Iraqi American either.

"You don't even have to be Muslim to be treated badly. You just need to be Middle Eastern. Just because you might wear a turban on your head, you get placed in a certain group," she said.

Karlin said in October that he was looking forward to the lawsuit, and protecting another individual's First Amendment rights.

"I grew up believing this sort of thing was un-American … but I worry that it is becoming American to arbitrarily discriminate against people," said Karlin.

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