Skip to main content

An Iranian research scientist who filed a federal discrimination lawsuit in the United States alleging a co-worker at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) harassed her for nine years because of her ethnicity was awarded more than US$3.8 million in damages on Tuesday, writes Corky Siemaszko for NBC News.

Fariba Moeinpour (62) said she was thrilled with the jury verdict, which was handed down in the Northern District of Alabama, and was ready to restart her life. “Day and night, I was looking for a job, any job, but nobody would hire me because my name was tarnished,” Moeinpour told NBC News. “Now, my good name has been restored.”


UAB, according to the jury verdict, was ordered to pay Moeinpour US$3 million in damages. Mary Jo Cagle, a former UAB data analyst who was identified in the lawsuit as the person who harassed Moeinpour, was ordered to pay her US$500,000 in compensatory damages and US$325,000 more in punitive damages.

Cagle, according to the lawsuit, began harassing Moeinpour almost from the moment she started working for Grubbs at the UAB School of Medicine.

Moeinpour said Cagle taunted her repeatedly, telling her she had a “weird ass” name and to “go back to Iran.”

“Our country does not need your kind,” Cagle said, according to the lawsuit.

Moeinpour said in the lawsuit that the abuse escalated over the years and that Cagle once nearly ran her and her daughter over with a car and later pulled a gun on her “in the UAB parking deck while telling her that this is what ‘we’ do to a ‘sand n-----.’”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"My parents, brother, and I left Iran in 1980, shortly after the revolution. After a brief stay in Italy, we packed all our belongings once again and headed west to the exotic and the unknown: Vancouver. We had recently been accepted as landed immigrants, meaning Canada graciously opened its doors and we gratefully accepted; we arrived at Vancouver International Airport on my 10th birthday, three suitcases and one sewing machine in tow. After respectful but intense questioning at immigration, we were dropped off at a hotel on Robson Street, which was then still a couple years shy of becoming the fashionable tourist hub it is today. We were jetlagged, culture shocked, and hungry, so that first night, my father and brother courageously ventured out into the wild in search of provisions. I fell asleep before they returned. The next morning, I woke up at 5 a.m. and ravenously feasted on a cold Quarter Pounder with cheese and limp French fries that had been left by my beds...
Post a Comment
Read more
Stacey was a nurse so Kurt knew she would be able to give him a pretty good idea of how critical it was. On the other hand her knowledge of medical jargon could make her words seem foreign to Kurt. “He’s sustained two injuries. The first one was right on impact, his brain was shaken around pretty badly. It might have even rotated and perhaps nerve fibers were stretched and veins and arteries might have torn too. The second one is an open wound where the skull broke. The brain is exposed in that area. He was probably hit by some kind of sharp object during the collision.” Stacey unsuccessfully tried to disguise a horrifying yelp that she let out. “It's possible the area around the wound is undamaged. He might be facing long-term disabilities. He’s lost a lot of blood and his blood pressure has really dropped from the trauma. He’s really weakened by the blood loss. Plus there’s the loss of oxygen to the brain. The damage may be catastrophic. And then there’s infection…” “When w...
Post a Comment
Read more
In 1980 a former classmate wrote me a letter that stated that he was fine and the class was doing find.  
Post a Comment
Read more