The ousted principal of a controversial Arabic public school in Brooklyn filed a federal lawsuit against the city yesterday, claiming the Bloomberg administration violated her rights to free speech and due process.
In a complaint she submitted in Manhattan federal court, Debbie Almontaser, the founder and former principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, claims top city officials violated her 1st and 14th Amendment rights.
The suit names both Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, claiming they pressured her to resign as principal because she hadn’t properly condemned “Intifada NYC” T-shirts during an exclusive August interview with The Post.
Her words led to public admonitions against her and the academy in ensuing days.
The filing says that later that week, Walcott offered her a spot elsewhere as assistant principal in exchange for her resignation “by 8 a.m. the next morning so that [Bloomberg] could announce it on his radio show.” She succumbed to the pressure and faxed her resignation the following morning, according to the filing.
The complaint also says Almontaser reapplied for her post, but was rejected outright by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and District Superintendent Rosemary Stuart, who also are named in the suit.
She claims she was denied because of the negative publicity surrounding her comments about the T-shirts rather than because of her qualifications.
The suit seeks unspecified “compensatory and punitive damages.”
Department of Education officials declined comment.