In the first ruling in former dean of engineering Mohammad Noori’s defamation suit against a number of defendants, local blogger Roger Freburg was awarded $17,000 to pay attorney fees May 17 by the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
With the help of an anti-strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) motion, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge, Jan Levine, ordered Noori to pay for Freburg’s attorney fees, totaling $16,958. California’s Anti-SLAPP statute was passed in 1992 to fight against litigation that may “strike a complaint where the complaint arises from conduct that falls within the rights of petition and free speech,” according to the California Anti-SLAPP project website.
Carlos Cordova, Cal Poly’s university legal counsel, said the money awarded Freburg is meant only to pay his attorney fees, not as a fiscal win for his personal benefit.
However, in a comment on the Cal Coast News website — which Freburg said he wrote as a statement to those interested in the case — he wrote “the only question I have now is: do I want another Harley or a used Humvee?” though he did also write that he “recover(ed his) legal fees.”
Still, Freburg said he “should not have been named in the case, nor should any media person.” In fact, Freburg said the case was really about the right of free speech and the poorly conceived and ill-fated Saudi Arabia-Cal Poly venture.
“I do understand that there are those who feel slighted, but it isn’t about them,” Freberg said. “It was, as the judge said, about ‘constitutionally protected free speech’ and ‘issue of public interest.’”
The “poorly conceived and ill-fated Saudi Arabia-Cal Poly venture” Freberg spoke of stands as the start of Noori’s suit.
In 2008, Noori helped in negotiations to start a Cal Poly engineering program at Jubail University College (JUC) in Saudi Arabia. But due to the cultural differences of the Middle East, female, LGBT and Jewish students and teachers would not be allowed to participate in the program.
By posting a blog and writing an article about the project, Freburg and Cal Coast News reporter Karen Velie were named in the defamation suit filed in December 2010 in Los Angeles County, as well as the California State University Board of Trustees and Cal Poly. Though the case was filed in Los Angeles, Cordova said it will be moved to San Luis Obispo County if Noori continues with the suit.
Noori said although Freburg won, he has not been discouraged to pursue further litigation against other defendents. In fact, Noori said he plans on appealing the Freburg decision.
Noori said he was asked to step down as the College of Engineering dean in June 2010 “due to ‘a lack of clarity in the direction of the college’” by Interim Provost Robert Koob. Yet, Noori said he was “never given any indication of such lack of clarity, and, on the contrary, the College (of Engineering) was heading in a direction that was reaching peak national recognition.”
Noori said he merely helped facilitate the JUC project rather than lead it and felt he has been blamed for the Saudi Arabia project, which was spearheaded and fully supported by the President’s office.
“I have been portrayed as bin Laden, being anti-Jew, anti-gay and anti-women, all of which are completely false,” Noori said. “These hateful, defamatory and libelous attacks are un-American and have resulted in a lot of stress, emotional suffering and have destroyed my entire career and reputation.”
However, Cordova said Cal Poly in no way discriminated Noori when he was asked to step down.
“We clearly deny any discrimination against Noori,” Cordova said. “We had an investigation conducted by the attorney general of the State of California into his complaints, and they also found evidence that he was not discriminated against while he was dean.”
Noori said he still felt as though he was the “scapegoat” in the JUC project because of his Middle Eastern background. He claims his background influenced the treatment of the situation because he had many achievements as the College of Engineering dean, including increasing female enrollment and helping the program rank “as the top public undergraduate engineering program in the country three times, which is a record for any five-year period in the history of the college.”
Yet, Noori said his roots have helped him continue in education throughout this process in that he is still employed by Cal Poly.
“As a young student, I immigrated to America almost 40 years ago, hoping to pursue my dreams of a better education,” Noori said. “I have devoted most of my life and career to improving engineering education, which is why I accepted the position as the dean of the College of Engineering at Cal Poly in July 2005.”