The founding principal of New York City’s first Arabic-themed school, forced out over comments she made to a newspaper about the word “intifada,” is not entitled to get her job back, a federal judge said in a preliminary ruling Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein said Debbie Almontaser’s free speech rights were not violated because she made the comments in her role as acting principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn. Her employer, the city, has a responsibility to supervise and monitor its messages to the public, he said.
