Iranian-born scientist sues University of Alabama at Birmingham for discrimination

An Iranian-born research scientist alleges that a former University of Alabama at Birmingham co-worker harassed her for nine years because of her ethnicity and even threatened her with a pistol but that the school failed to stop the abuse even after she repeatedly complained.

The woman, Fariba Moeinpour, said in a federal discrimination lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Alabama that Mary Jo Cagle, a data analyst at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, or UAB, taunted her for having a “weird-ass” name, called her a “b—-” and told her repeatedly to “go back to Iran.”

Moeinpour said she repeatedly complained over the nine-year period to UAB’s human resources department and to her and Cagle’s supervisor, Clinton Grubbs, about the harassment. Grubbs initially “dismissed her complaints and told her to focus on her work,” the lawsuit alleges. When he did intervene, Grubbs told Moeinpour that Cagle had also threatened him, it says. It all came to a head-on on Feb. 18, 2020, when Moeinpour was fired after an argument with Grubbs over how to deal with Cagle escalated into violence, according to court documents.

In response to a series of questions about Moeinpour’s claims, UAB spokeswoman Alicia Rohan said, “UAB does not comment on pending litigation.”

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“Our country does not need your kind,” Cagle said, the lawsuit alleges.

The abuse escalated over the years, Moeinpour said in the lawsuit, which claims that Cagle once nearly ran her and her daughter over with a car and that she later pulled a gun on her “in the UAB parking deck while telling her that this is what ‘we’ do to a ‘sand n—–.’”

Moeinpour said she repeatedly complained over the nine-year