Woodbridge Teacher Fired Over 9/11 Conspiracies Sues District, Alleges Anti-Muslim Attitudes

WOODBRIDGE, NJ - The Woodbridge high school history teacher axed after teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories has fired back and hit the Woodbridge school district with an anti-discrimination lawsuit.

In September, Patch reported that Jason Ali, a history teacher at Woodbridge High, was fired after 9/11 conspiracy links were discovered on his teacher page on the school's website. On his page, Ali linked to a website called The Middle East Research Institute, featuring articles with headlines such as "U.S. Planned, Carried Out 9/11 Attacks" and "U.S Planning 9/11-Style Attack using ISIS In Early 2015 — Like It Did Using Al-Queda in 2001." (The links and page have since been taken down.)

After the links were found, Ali was terminated by Woodbridge superintendent Robert Zega.

But Ali, who is a Muslim man of Egyptian descent, said he had been discriminated against for years by the high school principal and other Woodbridge high teachers. Patch was made aware of his lawsuit by an anonymous group called Free Ali.

In a damning letter, his attorney, Dayna Katz of the Warren-based law firm DiFrancesco Bateman, sent to the Woodbridge school board attorney Ari Schneider on Feb. 27, Ali alleged the following:

• He started working as a history teacher at the high school in 2015 and was also the assistant coach for the varsity football team. Throughout his employment, high school principal Glenn Lottmann would repeatedly make discriminatory comments towards him, such as "Look out for the Egyptian" and teased him about his full name, Jason Mustafa Ali.
• Ali said other teachers and staff would repeatedly call him "anti-American" and "terrorist sympathizer," but when he reported it to vice principal Matthew Connelly, no investigation was ever done.
• Ali also says Connelly approved his lesson plan on 9/11 and even approved the articles he linked to on his website, including a Saudi intelligence report on the Sept. 11 attacks and an Egyptian intelligence report.
• On Sept. 28, 2016, two weeks after he had taught 9/11 to his students, Ali said he was called into principal Lottmann's office. There, he says Lottmann angrily asked, "What the hell is wrong with you? Didn't I tell you to knock it off with the conspiracy theories?" Lottmann held the Saudi intelligence report over him, to which Ali replied that it was accredited. Lottmann allegedly said "Figures, the Arab" referring to Ali.
• Lottmann said "I'm tired of you and your conspiracies, you are a conspiracy theorist and don't belong in the classroom ... You are not going to have me taking questions from reporters." Lottmann ordered Ali to take the links down.
• Ali said he came into school the next day, Sept. 29, and found two signed termination papers from Zega. He was then "immediately bombarded for over thirty minutes with relentless, overt discriminatory and inappropriate questions about the Holocaust, his views on the Jewish religion, his ethnicity and his religion," Ali claims.
• Ali said Zega asked him "Explain what your views are on the Holocaust. How many Jews died in the Holocaust? Do you believe that Jews were killed in death camps in the Holocaust? Don't you know that someone who uses articles like this is anti-Semitic?" and "Do you see how someone with your Arab background, and I'm guessing you're Muslim, who puts up links on his school wires like this can be considered offensive? Are you harboring terrorism in your classroom?" He also asked, "Do you teach a conspiracy theory view of the Holocaust? Do you teach that Hitler was a good guy?"
• Ali said he asked for a lawyer, and Zega replied, "You don't get representation." Ali said the articles were used to teach what intelligence agencies and foreign governments think about 9/11, to which Zega replied, "We do not need a Middle Eastern perspective. Our district and this subject material is not in the curriculum, so you should not be teaching it."

Zega fired Ali that day and he was banned from all Woodbridge public school grounds. His dismissal was well publicized in the media, including by Patch. On Oct. 11 his home was broken into and vandalized, tagged with graffiti such as "ISIS, Arab FU, Devil" and multiple swastikas. On the outside of his house, the words "terrorist" and "die" were written.

Ali's attorney, Katz, said Ali is a victim of New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination and that he is entitled to compensation. When asked, Zega declined to comment to Patch.

"The Board is unable to comment on the details of a pending legal matter," he said Tuesday.