Israeli-American Emory Professor’s Civil Rights Conspiracy Claim Against CAIR Georgia and Emory Student Can Go Forward (in Part)

From yesterday’s decision by Judge Thomas Thrash (N.D. Ga.) in Winer v. Mohammad:

This action arises out of alleged defamatory statements that Defendant Umaymah Mohammad, a student at the Emory University School of Medicine, made about Plaintiff Joshua Winer, a physician and professor at Emory….

Mohammad wrote about Winer that, among other things,

one of the professors of medicine we have at Emory [apparently referring to Winer -EV] recently went to serve as a volunteer medic in the Israeli Offense Force [sic] and recently came back. This man participated in aiding and abetting a genocide, in aiding and abetting the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza and the murder of over 400 healthcare workers, and is now back at Emory so-called teaching medical students and residents how to take care of patients.

She and CAIR Georgia and CAIR Foundation, plaintiff alleged, used this and similar statements to “call[] for Emory to investigate him and/or terminate his employment.”

Plaintiff sued for defamation; see this post for more details on that claim, which the court allowed to go forward in part. But the court also allowed plaintiff’s federal civil rights conspiracy claim to go forward, as to the claim that defendants conspired to violate his rights under Title VI:

To state a claim under § 1985(3), a plaintiff must establish that the defendant has

(1) conspired … (2) for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws, or of equal privileges and immunities under the laws, (3) taken or caused an action to be taken in furtherance of the conspiracy’s object, and (4) injured an individual’s person or property or deprived her of exercising any right or privilege of a United States citizen….

Title VI provides that no one shall “be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance” on the ground of his “race, color, or national origin.” … [N]owhere in the Second Amended Complaint does the Plaintiff allege Emory’s federal funding as the linchpin for his Title VI-based § 1985(3) claim.  So, the only arguably proper factual basis for this portion of the Plaintiff’s § 1985(3) claim is his allegation that CAIR Georgia conspired with CAIR Foundation—which he alleges is federally funded—”to interfere with [his] rights by publicly demanding that Emory investigate and/or terminate his employment” via the IG Post and the allegedly defamatory and false accusations therein. He also asserts that this discrimination was carried out “in the administration of CAIR Foundation’s program or activities receiving Federal financial assistance.”

Construing the factual allegations in the Plaintiff’s favor, the Plaintiff has stated a § 1985(3) claim predicated on Title VI at this stage. Although CAIR Georgia argues that there is no nexus between CAIR Foundation’s receipt of federal funding and its alleged conspiratorial actions, no such nexus is required. To state a claim under § 2000d, a plaintiff must  only  allege  that  the  defendant  receives  federal  funds,  that  it discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and that it did so in the course of a federally funded program. The Plaintiff has made those allegations here.

CAIR Georgia also argues that the Plaintiff has failed to allege racial or other class-based animus behind the conspirators’ actions…. [But plaintiff] says that CAIR Georgia was motivated by “his Jewish identity and/or Zionist beliefs,” going on to say that his military service resulted from a “sense of duty to serve the Jewish homeland, which is integral to his racial identity as a Jew” and that his association with Zionism is also “an integral of Jewish identity for a very significant number of Jews.” In essence, the Plaintiff alleges that his military service and association with Zionism are “markers” of his Jewish identity, and that his Jewish heritage is a protected class….

While CAIR Georgia contend that the Plaintiff actually pleads that the Defendants were motivated by a desire to express their political views, taking that view would require the Court to construe the Second Amended Complaint’s allegations narrowly and in their favor, a task which the Court may not do.

Taking the facts as the Plaintiff has alleged them, CAIR Georgia conspired with CAIR Foundation to create the IG Post in hopes of pressuring Emory to discipline or terminate him because of their views of the Plaintiff’s Jewish identity, as expressed through his Zionist beliefs and IDF military service. Critical to this interpretation is the Plaintiff’s allegations that his IDF service was tied to the duty he felt based on his nationality and the significance of Zionism in Jewish culture. These allegations suffice at this stage to demonstrate that a discriminatory animus based on a protected class—the Plaintiff’s national origin— motivated CAIR Georgia’s actions, not mere political differences.

Whether this claim could withstand summary judgment is a different issue, and not one that is before the Court today….