EEOC Victory for Muslim Interfaith Advocate Who Founded Arab Language Public School

This week, my synagogue will honor Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim woman, and celebrate her victory before the EEOC.
The very brief summary of Ms. Almontaser’s case is as follows. She was the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, a public school with “a special emphasis on Arabic language on culture.” Apparently because the school would teach Arabic and Ms. Almontaser is a Muslim (and despite express assurances from New York City to the contrary), opponents alleged that the school would somehow indoctrinate its students in anti-American attitudes. They also criticized Ms. Almontaser because a girl’s youth group that rented space from a group with which she was affiliated had sold t-shirts with the phrase “N.Y.C. Intifada” on them. Last month, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) found that the allegations against Ms. Almontaser were grounded in bigotry and that the New York City Board of Education had acquiesced in this bigotry in constructively discharging her as acting Principal and in refusing to appoint her permanent principal. The City has rejected this finding. (Most of the following facts are taken from a New York Times article and the EEOC Complaint to which it links, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/nyregion/13principal.html?scp=1&sq=Almontasar%20Gibran&st=cse).
The EEOC’s conclusions were not a surprise to me. A number of prominent Rabbis in my community had stepped forward to defend Ms. Almontaser and, a few years before the dispute, Ms. Almontaser had shared the bimah (altar) with my Rabbi for a dialogue sermon on Erev Rosh HaShanah. Perhaps the best summary of Ms. Almontasar’s leadership was offered by Samuel Freedman, a Columbia journalism professor and religion columnist for the New York Times, who explained in 2007 that “[f]or anyone who bothered to look for it, Ms. Almontaser left a clear, public record of interfaith activism and outreach across the boundaries of race, ethnicity and religion.” http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/education/29education.html
I am proud that my synagogue has chosen to honor her and sad that my City continues to deny her justice.