An Iran-born retired business professor waited too long to sue the University of Illinois at Springfield for purported racial and national origin discrimination, according to U.S. District Judge Sue Myerscough of Springfield.
As a result, she dismissed the suit filed by Dr. Ardeshir Lohrasbi, who claims the university wrongly barred him from campus before his scheduled retirement took effect and denied him a promised emeritus designation.
Lohrasbi, who is a U.S. citizen, joined the faculty in 1980 and earned tenure in 1986, the decision said.
In mid-2011, when he was an associate professor of business administration, Lohrasbi negotiated a resignation agreement that was to take effect at the end of the calendar year. That summer, however, he told the dean he would like to delay its effect for financial reasons but the university declined to let him do so.
During his final term, Lohrasbi made a comment about “maybe a machine gun” to a staff member, who reported it to university authorities, the decision said. Campus police investigated the incident and issued a “notice of trespass” to Lohrasbi as a possible danger to the university, barring him from campus without a police escort for one year.
The university placed Lohrasbi on administrative leave and prohibited him from teaching his classes or contacting students for the rest of the term, the decision said. The university also did not initiate the process that would give him emeritus status, allowing him to continue teaching and keep an office.
He sued under Title VII, alleging discrimination based on his Iranian heritage. The suit also asserted that “he was labeled a terrorist because of the machine gun comment and that a White professor who had made the same comment would not have been subject to the same response,” the decision said.
