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The University of Alabama at Birmingham will have to pay an Iranian-born former cancer researcher $3 million in damages after a federal jury sided with the employee, who said she was harassed for years because of her nationality, AL.com reported.
Fariba Moeinpour sued the university in October 2021, alleging that a staff member harassed her for nine years and the university ignored her complaints. That staff member, a data analyst, threatened her with a gun and told her to go “back to Iran,” among other incidents, according to the lawsuit. Moeinpour repeatedly complained to her supervisor and human resources, but they declined to intervene, she said in the lawsuit. Moeinpour was fired in February 2020 after a confrontation with her supervisor.
The university said in a statement that it disagreed with the jury’s verdict and is weighing its next steps. The jury also awarded Moeinpour $825,000 in damages from the employee who she said harassed her.
Moeinpour’s lawyer, Eric Artrip, told NBC News that “this case is a reminder that people do not have to suffer racial discrimination in silence and that the American justice system works for all of us.”
