PENSACOLA — A Santa Rosa County man has filed a civil rights lawsuit against a private university in Texas claiming his years of work toward a doctorate degree came to nothing because of discriminatory treatment he received from a faculty advisory.
Karim Akel of Navarre filed his 10-page complaint July 13 in U.S. District Court for Florida's Northern District, Pensacola Division, against Southern Methodist University in Dallas, alleging violations of the Civil Rights Act.
"Defendant did not fail plaintiff on his qualifying examination for any valid reason," the lawsuit said. "Plaintiff was failed because of his race (Middle Eastern/North African), ethnicity (Syrian/Lebanese) and place of origin (Lebanon)."
Akel's allegations against SMU include two counts of discrimination. Akel is asking that "all legally-available general and compensatory damages and economic loss" be awarded because of SMU's alleged discrimination against him. Akel also is asking the court to permanently enjoin SMU from future civil rights violations, attorneys fees, costs, and "such other further relief as being just and proper under the circumstances," the lawsuit said.
Akel is described in the lawsuit as a 62-year-old electrical engineer and naturalized U.S. citizen, born in Syria and raised in Lebanon, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1977. His race, ethnicity and place of origin make him a member of a protected class, according to the lawsuit.
"The amount in controversy, without interest and costs, exceeds $75,000," the lawsuit said.
Akel claims the federal court in Florida is the proper venue because of his residency "and a substantial part of the events giving rise to this case occurred within this district," the lawsuit said.
Akel was accepted into SMU's electrical engineering Ph.D. program as a long-distance student, "meaning he attended classes and interacted with his Dallas-based professors and advisers electronically from his home in Navarre," the lawsuit said. All went well until January 2016 when Akel and his faculty adviser, Jerome Butler, met face-to-face for the first time, according to the lawsuit.
After that, "Butler repeatedly inquired into Defendant’s ethnicity and national origin in a rude, insulting, and inappropriate way that made Plaintiff feel extremely uncomfortable," and Akel's emails to Butler went unanswered, the lawsuit said. Shortly after, Butler informed Akel that his dissertation topic of the past couple of years "and which had never been questioned before, was suddenly unacceptable to Butler," the lawsuit said.
"Plaintiff was told he had failed the qualifying examination and had to start the dissertation portion of his program all over again with a new, third research topic. Dr. Butler provided Plaintiff no meaningful explanation for how or why a topic that was acceptable during the approximately fifteen months before they met face-to-face suddenly was not, or why Plaintiff was abruptly failed in this fashion."
Akel claims his complaints to "several different levels of the SMU administration" were "essentially ignored," and he soon was "forced to withdraw from SMU," the lawsuit said.
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Catharine "Casey" Rodgers.
The complaint was filed on Akel's behalf by Tallahassee attorney Marie A Mattox under case No. 3:18-cv-01532-MCR-CJK