From Judge Donald Middlebrooks (S.D. Fla.) in Ahmed v. Dist. Bd. of Trs. for Indian River State Coll., decided June 17 but just posted on Westlaw (appeal pending):
According to the First Amended Complaint ("FAC"), Plaintiff Syed Ammar Ahmed … is a practicing Muslim of Pakistani descent who served as an adjunct instructor at IRSC from 2019 until his termination on March 1, 2024. IRSC informed Plaintiff that he was being terminated based on a purported "security alert" indicating that he appeared on an "FDLE Homeland Security database" for "terrorist threats." Plaintiff alleges that no such database exists and that the allegation was false. IRSC's Chief of Campus Safety directed Plaintiff to a 2020 article by Joe Kaufman accusing Plaintiff of being an "Islamist," "racist," and "socialist," and referencing Facebook posts Plaintiff made as a minor between 2009 and 2013. Plaintiff alleges that IRSC relied on this article and anti-Muslim stereotypes in terminating him.
Plaintiff further alleges that internal IRSC emails obtained through a Florida Sunshine Act request show that by April 5, 2024, IRSC's Campus Safety office had "cleared" Plaintiff and concluded he posed no threat. According to the FAC, IRSC leadership drafted a reinstatement letter following this clearance but never sent it, and Plaintiff received no communication from IRSC for nearly five months.
Plaintiff alleges that this failure to reinstate him was not inadvertent. Rather, he asserts that Defendant [Timothy] Moore, the Chancellor of the Florida College System, personally intervened to prevent his reinstatement, directing IRSC officials not to send the reinstatement letter and insisting that the termination remain in place despite the internal clearance. Plaintiff further alleges that contemporaneous emails show IRSC administrators understood Moore to be closely monitoring the matter and seeking updates regarding Plaintiff's status.
Plaintiff alleges that a member of the Florida Board of Education brought the 2020 Kaufman article to Moore's attention, encouraged Moore to act on the article, and thereby played a role in initiating and perpetuating the action taken against him. Plaintiff contends that Moore acted on this encouragement and maintained the termination even after IRSC's own safety personnel determined that Plaintiff posed no threat.
Plaintiff was ultimately reinstated on August 28, 2024—within an hour of IRSC receiving Plaintiff's public records request seeking internal communications about his termination, the April 5 clearance, and the withheld reinstatement letter. Plaintiff filed his EEOC charge on February 20, 2025….
The court allowed plaintiff's constitutional claim to go forward:
