A federal judge in Newark, New Jersey, has dismissed a First Amendment retaliation suit by a university lecturer whose contract was not renewed after the New York Times reported that he was part of the alt-right movement.
While an institution such as the defendant New Jersey Institute of Technology is intended to function as a marketplace of ideas, plaintiff Jason Jorjani’s firing was warranted because of the disruption to the administration and faculty and the harm to the school’s educational environment when his ideology was made public, the court said.
“A professor that calls universal human rights ‘ill-conceived and bankrupt’ and predicts that Muslims will be expelled and put in concentration camps while Hitler is praised as a ‘great European leader’—regardless of the exact context of these statements—certainly presents a level of hostility that is likely to disrupt NJIT’s mission of fostering a collegial pedagogical environment,” Senior U.S. District Judge William Martini wrote in Jorjani v. New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Jorjani, a lecturer in philosophy, began teaching at Newark-based NJIT in 2015. In 2016, he formed alliances with the alt-right and formed a group called Alt Right Corporation, the ruling said.
In 2017, Jorjani was approached by an individual identifying himself as Erik Hellberg, who expressed interest in how academia persecutes and silences the right wing. But Hellberg’s real name was Patrik Hermansson, who was affiliated with a group called ”Hope Not Hate,” which has the goal of “deconstructing” individuals it labels as fascists or extremists, the opinion said.
Jorjani met with Hermansson, who secretly videotaped the conversation, the opinion said. Topics included race, immigration and politics.
In September 2017, the Times published an op-ed containing an edited version of the conversation. Jorjani, in the recording, characterizes “universal human rights” as an “ill-conceived and bankrupt” socio-political ideology.
In the video, Jorjani calls for creation of a “revolutionary state” as the present order begins to disintegrate. He states that “it’s going to end” with the expulsion of migrants and citizens who are primarily of Muslim descent, concentration camps, and war “at the cost of a few hundred million people.” He said by 2050, Hitler’s face would appear on European bank notes. Some day, Jorjani said, Hitler would be seen “not like some weird monster, who is unique in his own category. No, he’s just going to be seen as a great European leader.”
Jorjani told NJIT the video was edited to misrepresent his views. Students and faculty denounced his views, with one group of professors stating in a letter published in the student newspaper that “Dr. Jorjani’s published beliefs create a hostile learning environment for students of color in particular, and his presence on the instructional staff at NJIT appears to legitimize discredited race-based ideas about intelligence and citizenship that have no place in academia.”
Jorjani maintained that the public’s strong reaction to his speech facilitated free and open debate, which he argues is essential to the proper functioning of a university. He added that his speech was made in confidence within a private conversation off campus. The school countered that “NJIT personnel were forced to divert their focus from NJIT’s educational mission in favor of addressing voluminous complaints about Jorjani.”
The school also asserted that Jorjani’s speech ”created an unworkable situation” whereby he would be “teaching students of ethnicities he deemed to be of inherently lesser intellectual value and injurious to the goal of restoring the preeminence of the Aryan heritage.”
“Contrary to his assertions. Plaintiff’s speech did not merely cause offense—it disrupted (and was likely to further disrupt) NJIT’s administration, interfered with NJIT’s mission to efficiently provide a hostile-free learning environment for its students, and impeded plaintiff’s ability to effectively perform his teaching duties. Thus, plaintiff’s speech does not merit protection under the First Amendment, and defendants did not violate plaintiff’s constitutional rights,” Martini wrote.
Frederick C. Kelly, an attorney in Goshen, New York who represented Jorjani, did not respond to a call about the case. NJIT was represented by Tricia B. O’Reilly, Marc D. Haefner and Eric S. Padilla of Walsh Pizzi O’Reilly Falanga in Newark.
Haefner said “NJIT appreciates the court’s careful consideration of the legal issues presented and is glad that NJIT’s decisions have been affirmed.”
