Washington — An Iranian-American graduate student at Georgetown University has sued the institution, accusing it of racial profiling when it detained him at a graduation ceremony in May 2007.
Kambiz Fattahi — a student in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and a dual citizen of the United States and Iran — says he was watching the ceremony in the university’s main gymnasium when a public-safety officer insisted that he leave and told him he was “making some people nervous.” According to the lawsuit, two officers questioned Mr. Fattahi in a public hallway, searching his backpack and making sarcastic remarks about “Babylon and the Tigris River.”
Mr. Fattahi filed suit on Tuesday against the university, the two officers, and the director of their department. He alleges several violations of his rights under the Constitution and the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act, and he seeks a revision of Georgetown’s antidiscrimination policies, related training for its security officers, and unspecified damages.
A Georgetown spokeswoman said in an interview that Mr. Fattahi’s charges were “without merit.”
“We would expect to vigorously defend ourselves,” said the spokeswoman, Julie Green Bataille.
Last August, Georgetown announced that it had investigated the original incident and concluded that its officers had acted appropriately. The university received an anonymous threat 10 days before the commencement, Ms. Bataille said in a written statement, and an audience member had reported that Mr. Fattahi was behaving suspiciously. —Sara Lipka