Ali v. Woodbridge Twp. Sch. Dist., Civil Action No. 17-2210
| Decision Date | 30 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 17-2210 |
| Parties | JASON MOSTAFA ALI, Plaintiff, v. WOODBRIDGE TOWNSHIP SCHOOL DISTRICT, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
THIS MATTER comes before the Court by way of a Motion for Summary Judgment filed by Defendants Woodbridge Township Board of Education, Woodbridge Township School District (collectively, "Woodbridge" or the "District"), Superintendent Robert Zega ("Zega"), and Principal Glenn Lottman ("Lottman" or when referenced collectively with Woodbridge and Zega, "Defendants"), against Plaintiff Jason Mostafa Ali ("Ali" or "Plaintiff"). ECF No. 25. Plaintiff opposes the Motion. ECF No. 28. For the reasons set forth below, the Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. The sole surviving claim is remanded to the New Jersey Superior Court for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
This employment dispute raises the question of whether a teacher can be terminated for allowing access to repugnant, anti-Semitic, and inflammatory media as part of a high school history lesson on the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants unlawfully terminated his employment because of his race and religion. Plaintiff further alleges that Defendants failed to provide him with sufficient notice of his rights in connection with his termination under the Open Public Meetings Act and the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act.
Plaintiff also alleges that Defendants made defamatory statements in violation of the common law and Plaintiff's due process rights, and asserts claims for violation of his First Amendment rights to Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom.
Plaintiff was employed as a non-tenured history teacher at Woodbridge High School from September 2015 to September 2016. Defendants' Local Rule 56.1 Statement of Material Facts ("SOMF")1 at ¶¶ 2, 6, 58, 69. Plaintiff is of Egyptian descent. Id. ¶ 7. He identifies as a non-practicing Muslim. Id.
Defendant Glenn Lottman is the principal of Woodbridge High School. Id. ¶ 4. Defendant Robert Zega is the Superintendent of Schools for the Woodbridge Township School District. Id. ¶ 5. Plaintiff knew both Lottman and Zega prior to his employment with the Woodbridge Township School District. See id. ¶¶ 9-12, 14. Plaintiff had previously worked as a substitute teacher at a Woodbridge elementary school where Zega worked as the principal. Deposition of Jason Ali, Jan. 9, 2018 ("Ali Dep., Day 1") at 21:12-22:7 (ECF No. 25.6 at 56-57).2 Zega provided a letter of recommendation in support of Plaintiff's application for employment with the Keansburg School District, where Plaintiff ultimately worked as a tenured high school teacher. Id.at 21:12-22:1 (ECF No. 25.6 at 56-57); SOMF ¶ 18. He was employed by Keansburg from 2011 to 2015. Ali Dep., Day 1 at 23:10-18 (ECF No. 25.6 at 58).
After Plaintiff applied for a full-time teaching position at Woodbridge High School, he interviewed with Principal Lottman and History Department Supervisor Matthew Connelly ("Connelly"). SOMF ¶ 15. Superintendent Zega subsequently recommended Plaintiff for hire to the Board of Education. Id. ¶ 17. Plaintiff believes—and Woodbridge acknowledges—that both Lottman and Zega knew Plaintiff was Egyptian before he was hired by the District. Id. ¶ 13; Defs.' Br. at 5 (ECF No. 25.3 at 12).
During Plaintiff's first year of employment at Woodbridge, Connelly received internal complaints about Plaintiff's instruction on the Holocaust. SOMF ¶¶ 21, 24. One English teacher advised Connelly that "her students were questioning historical accounts of the Holocaust, opining that 'Hitler didn't hate the Jews,' [and] that statistics on the death counts were 'exaggerated.'" Id. ¶ 24. The English teacher advised Connelly that the students received this information from Plaintiff. Id.
Discovery revealed that many of Plaintiff's students submitted written assignments embracing theories of Holocaust denial. In a vocabulary assignment, one student wrote: Id. ¶ 29. In an essay, another student expressed the following beliefs:
I think that what they claim happened in the concentration camps did not really happen. I highly doubt that everyday [sic] Jews were burned. I doubt that they were whipped and beat for nothing at all. What I do believe however is that they had a much easier and more enjoyable life in the camps. Even though they were not at home, they felt like they were.
Id. ¶ 33. When asked whether this was an "appropriate conclusion" for a student to reach, Plaintiff answered, "Yes." Deposition of Jason Ali, Feb. 2, 2018 ("Ali Dep., Day 2") 117:2-13 (ECF No. 25.6 at 308). Counsel then asked whether it was "okay for 14-year-old girls to think that the camps were a jolly place and they were better off there than being at home." Id. at 119:23-25 (ECF No. 25.6 at 308). Plaintiff responded, "It's appropriate for a 14-year-old girl to do her research on her own and form opinions." Id. at 120:6-8 (ECF No. 25.6 at 308). An excerpt from a class assignment that a student had submitted to Plaintiff provided:
Hitler had the plan that saved Germany, which does not make any sense as to why everyone still labels him as this monster. They tell you that Hitler invaded countries for no reason. They will never tell you, however, that those countries like Poland that he invaded for no reason had been controlling Germany and slaughtering innocent Germans.
Id. at 114:9-21 (ECF No. 25.6 at 307). When asked whether he was "proud that [the student] came to these conclusions," Plaintiff testified, "Yes, absolutely, because that means she would have spent a lot of time doing research to come up with these inferences based on the information she was given." Id. at 115:9-14 (ECF No. 25.6 at 307).
Another student wrote an essay entitled, "A Gas Chamber Full of Lies" about the film "Adolf Hitler: The Greatest Story Never Told." SOMF ¶ 30. The student wrote:
I have been taught that the Holocaust was a time were [sic] Hitler chose to brutally abuse, take advantage of, and murder Jews, for absolutely no reason at all. We have all been taught that the Holocaust was a time of hate, and that Hitler used the gifts he possessed for absolute evil, but is that really the case? Did the Jews not crash Germany's economy on more than one occasion? Did they not criticize Christianity because it was not what they believed? Did the Jewish Zionists themselves not introduce a whole world of people to pornography? Did they not allow even the people of youngest ages to take up drugs and alcohol causing addictions that led to nothing but they did as they ripped away what they were providing the people with in the first place? Is the death of the Jews completely justified? No, because nobody deserves to die,regardless what they've done. But are their deaths really completely unjustified either?
Id. at ¶ 30; id. at Exhibit Q, WBOE 633 (ECF No. 25.6 at 537). Plaintiff permitted the student author to read that paper aloud in class. Id. ¶ 31. When asked whether he "t[aught] [his students] to question the facts as to whether Hitler chose to brutally abuse, take advantage, starve and murder Jews for absolutely no reason at all," Plaintiff responded that he "t[aught] [his] students to question everything." Ali Dep., Day 2 98:3-8 (ECF No. 25.6 at 303). When asked whether he "encouraged" his students to "come to different views than the traditional understanding of what World War II and the Holocaust and Hitler were about," Plaintiff responded "Yeah, it's called debate." Id. at 102:17-103:1 (ECF No. 25.6 at 304).
In accordance with instructions from the High School's History Department, Plaintiff prepared and presented a lesson on the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001 ("9/11"). SOMF ¶¶ 36-37. Plaintiff's September 2016 lesson plan directed the students to: Id. ¶ 39.3 History Department Supervisor Connelly approved the lesson plan and attached a note that read: "As previously discussed, please be certain to providenonpartisan view of 9/11 with equal weight given to conventional accounts." Id. ¶ 40. In connection with the lesson, Plaintiff also posted links to outside articles from the MEMRI website on a school-sponsored website. Id. ¶ 41. The articles were entitled, "Article in Saudi Daily: U.S. Planned, Carried Out 9/11 Attacks—But Blames Others for Them" and "Egyptian Daily: U.S. Planning 9/11 Style Attack Using ISIS in Early 2015—Like it Did Using Al-Qaeda in 2001." Id. ¶¶ 42-43. The MEMRI articles that were linked to Plaintiff's school webpage contained links to other articles and video clips, including one link that read: "Saudi Scholar Abdailah Al-Yahya: The Jews are Like a Cancer, Woe to the World if they Become Strong." Id. ¶ 45.
On September 28, 2016, a television reporter questioned Plaintiff Lottman about the MEMRI links Plaintiff posted in connection with his September 2016 lesson plan on 9/11. Id. ¶ 46. When the same news station questioned Superintendent Zega about the articles, he advised that "swift action" had been taken to remove the links. Id. ¶ 61. He further indicated that the District would undertake an investigation and that, if warranted based on the outcome of the investigation, "the teacher [would] be disciplined severely." Id. With respect to the links, Zega also opined: ...
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