UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT of NEW YORK ------X DEBBIE ALMONTASER, CV 07- Plaintiff, ECF CASE -Against
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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ------------------------------------------------------------------------x DEBBIE ALMONTASER, CV 07- Plaintiff, ECF CASE -against- NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION; COMPLAINT WITH JOEL KLEIN, individually and in his official capacity as JURY DEMAND Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education; ROSEMARY STUART, individually and in her official capacity as Community Superintendent of District 15 and Hiring Manager; CITY OF NEW YORK; MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, individually and in his official capacity as Mayor of the City of New York; DENNIS WALCOTT, individually and in his official capacity as Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development, Defendants. ---------------------------------------------------------------------x Plaintiff Debbie Almontaser, as and for her complaint, by her attorneys, Alan Levine and Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP, alleges as follows: PRELIMINARY STATEMENT 1. This action arises from defendants’ acts in violation of plaintiff’s rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Plaintiff was a moving force behind the establishment of the Khalil Gibran International Academy (“KGIA), the first public Arabic dual language school in New York City. By their actions, defendants forced plaintiff to resign from her position as interim acting principal of KGIA and are now denying plaintiff the opportunity to become the permanent principal of KGIA because of her protected speech. This action seeks injunctive and declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages to redress deprivation of and to secure protection of plaintiff’s constitutional rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983, as well as the Constitution of the State of New York. JURISDICTION AND VENUE 2. The jurisdiction of the Court is invoked pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983 and is founded on Title 28 U.S.C. §1343(3) and (4). This Court has supplemental jurisdiction over all state constitutional and state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1367(a). 3. The deprivations of rights alleged below were committed within the district of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York. PARTIES 4. At all times relevant hereto, plaintiff Debbie Almontaser was and still is a resident of the State of New York, County of Kings. 5. Almontaser is a respected educator who was selected to be the project manager and then the interim acting principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, the first public Arabic dual language school in New York City. Plaintiff is and has been at all times relevant hereto an employee of the New York City Department of Education 6. Defendant New York City Department of Education (“DOE”) is a department of the City of New York. 7. Defendant Joel Klein is the Chancellor of the Department of Education. 8. Defendant Rosemary Stuart is the Community Superintendent of District 15 and the Hiring Manager for the position of principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy. 2 (“KGIA”). 9. Defendant City of New York is a municipal corporation within the State of New York. 10. Defendant Michael Bloomberg is the Mayor of the City of New York. 11. Defendant Dennis Walcott is the Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development of the City of New York. 12. Upon information and belief, all individual defendants were and are citizens of the United States and residents of the State of New York. 13. All individual defendants are sued individually and in their official capacities. 14. At all times relevant hereto, defendants and each of them were acting under color of state law. 15. At all times relevant hereto each of the individual defendants was and still is an officer, agent or employee of the City of New York. 16. At all times relevant hereto, all individual defendants were acting in their capacities as officers, agents or employees of the City of New York and within the scope of their employment. 17. Defendants DOE and City of New York were and are public employers located in New York, Brook, New York. 18. The individual defendants possess final policymaking authority to establish municipal policy with respect to the actions at issue. STATEMENT OF FACTS 19. Plaintiff’s adult life has been devoted to two principal undertakings, the education 3 of children and the promotion of understanding and tolerance between persons of diverse ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds. When she was asked by New Visions for Public Schools, an educational reform organization that assists the Department of Education in establishing new schools, to participate in the development of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, and then to become its founding principal, she saw that as an opportunity to merge these two undertakings: to educate children through a curriculum that was dedicated to multi-cultural understanding. Work with Diverse Communities 20. Plaintiff’s work in promoting understanding between diverse communities was well known to New Visions and the DOE upon the creation of KGIA. Indeed, that work was a principal reason that she was identified as the person to lead KGIA. 21. Most of this work began after the attacks of 9/11, when tensions between New York=s ethnic and religious communities deteriorated rapidly. Soon thereafter she worked with Community School District 15 to develop a Multicultural Task Force for school staff and parents to promote school harmony. 22. In January 2002, she became the Community Coordinator for the Christian Children=s Fund, which worked collaboratively with local Muslim, Christian, and Jewish resource centers, as well as with school personnel and neighborhood associations, in promoting multicultural awareness and understanding. She continued that work as Cultural Diversity Coordinator for High Schools from September 2002 to August 2003. 23. In May 2003, she became Project Consultant for the Mosaic Youth Project, which was an anti-bias pilot project that incorporated diversity and anti-bias training, nonviolence, 4 conflict resolution, and leadership skill-building with theater arts for social change. Its goal was to provide youth with the skills to negotiate conflict in the post-9/11 world. 24. In 2001, she became a founding board member of The Dialogue Project, which seeks to build trust, compassion, and understanding around issues relating to the conflict in the Middle East. 25. She is a member of the Brooklyn President=s New Diversity Task Force, which attempts to build bridges of understanding among Brooklyn=s diverse communities. It does so through participation in cultural events and educational forums organized by community leaders and clergy. 26. She is a member of the advisory board of the Same Difference Interfaith Alliance, a coalition of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian groups who came together in response to the events of September 11. Using various forms of artistic expression, the Alliance seeks to heal racial, cultural, and religious tensions throughout America. 27. She is an advisor to the Interfaith Center of New York on cultural and religious issues pertaining to the Arab and Muslim communities. She has facilitated workshops on diversity and spoken on panels to further its goal of promoting respect and understanding among various religious groups in New York. 28. She was a co-founder of Brooklyn Bridges, which provided Arab and Muslim communities with escorts in the weeks following 9/11. It has continued to organize cross-cultural events at Brooklyn churches and synagogues. 29. She joined with a group of New York City educators to form the September 11th Curriculum Project, which sought to address the issues and tensions that arose among 5 schoolchildren after the 9/11 attacks. The project conducted a series of day-long conferences to develop relevant curriculum and sent specialists to schools that requested them. 30. She is a founding board member of We Are All Brooklyn, which works on issues that divide Brooklyn=s diverse ethnic and religious communities. 31. She has contributed chapters for two books on her inter-ethnic and community and education work, The Day Our World Changed: Children=s Art of 9/11 for New York University=s Child Care Center, and Forever After: New York City Teachers on 9/11 (Teachers College Press). 32. She has received a number of awards in recognition of this work, including a Peace Builder Award from the Brooklyn Ethical Society, an Educator/Bridge Builder Award from the Brooklyn Borough President, a Multi-Cultural Educator/Peace Builder Award from Brooklyn Parents for Peace, and an Arab Heritage Recognition Award from the Mayor of the City of New York. The Founding of KGIA 33. Plaintiff was first contacted about opening a new school by Adam Rubin from New Visions, who was referred to her by the DOE. They initially talked about a school that would teach both Hebrew and Arabic, but linguists with whom they consulted suggested that it would be difficult to teach two such difficult languages. Eventually, the decision was made to create a school that would provide a rigorous regents-based curriculum with Arabic language and cultural studies, and that would equip students for work in such areas as international affairs, diplomacy, and cross-cultural understanding. As with the more than 60 other dual language programs in the 6 city, KGIA was created to foster multilingual and multicultural education. It was also joining many New York City public schools that use theme-based approaches to inform and enrich curriculum across subject areas. 34. On February 12, 2007 the Department of Education announced the establishment of KGIA and Almontaser was named Project Director, the title that is given by the DOE to persons who lead the development of a new school. Within two days, and continuing almost daily until she was forced to resign, newspapers and internet bloggers began attacking the school as an Islamist religious school. Local papers ran headlines such as AHoly war! Slope Parents Protest Arabic School Plan,@ AArabic School Idea Is a Monstrosity,@ and AA Madrassa Grows in Brooklyn.@ AMadrassa@ is an Arab word for Aschool@ that is used negatively in English to connote an Islamic religious school.