BRYAN PURCELL and GEORGENE STERGALAS, vs IMAD FADLALLAH, individually and In his official capacity as Principal of Dearborn Fordson High School, and DEARBORN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, a Michigan municipal corporation

Case 2:10-cv-13444-RHC -MJH Document 1 Filed 08/27/10 Page 1 of 34
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
SOUTHERN DIVISION
BRYAN PURCELL and
GEORGENE STERGALAS,
Case No.
Plaintiffs,
Hon.
v.
IMAD FADLALLAH, individually and
In his official capacity as Principal of
Dearborn Fordson High School, and
DEARBORN PUBLIC SCHOOLS, a
Michigan municipal corporation,
Defendants.
_______________________________________________________________________/
DEBORAH K. SCHLUSSEL (P56420)
LAW OFFICE OF DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL
Attorney for Plaintiff
writedebbie@gmail.com
COMPLAINT
NOW COMES Plaintiffs, BRYAN PURCELL and GEORGENE STERGALAS,
by and through their attorney, DEBORAH K. SCHLUSSEL, and for their Complaint,
state as follows:
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
1.
This action presents various Constitutional, statutory, and common law
claims arising under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States
Constitution, the Michigan Constitution of 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII,
42 U.S.C., Section 1983, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C.,

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Section 12111 et seq., the Whistleblowers Protection Act of Michigan, MCL 15.361 et
seq., the Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act of Michigan, MCL 37.1101 et seq.,
and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, MCL 37.2101 et seq. Jurisdiction is conferred
upon this Court, pursuant to 28 U.S.C., Sections 1331 and 1343. This Court has
supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. Section 1367.
2.
Plaintiffs’ claims for equitable, declaratory, and injunctive relief are
authorized pursuant to 28 U.S.C., Sections 2201 and 2202, 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, 42
U.S.C. Section 12111 et seq., Rules 57 and 65 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,
and the general legal and equitable powers of this Court.
3.
Pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, 42 U.S.C. Section 12111 et seq., and
other applicable law, this Court is justified to award nominal, compensatory, and punitive
damages, and equitable relief against Defendant Imad Fadlallah, in his individual
capacity, and against the Defendant Dearborn Public Schools for the past and ongoing
violations of Plaintiffs’ Constitutional rights and the harm caused by his actions.
4.
This Court is justified to award reasonable costs of litigation, including
attorneys’ fees and expenses, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983, 42 U.S.C. Section
12111 et seq., the Whistleblowers Protection Act of Michigan, MCL 15.361 et seq.,
Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act of Michigan, MCL 37.1101 et seq., the Elliott-
Larsen Civil Rights Act, and other applicable law.
5.
Venue is proper in the Eastern District of Michigan pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
Section 1391 because all Defendants reside within this district and a substantial part of
the events or omissions giving rise to Plaintiffs’ claims occurred within this district.
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6.
Plaintiffs have exhausted all available administrative remedies. Plaintiffs
filed complaints regarding the discrimination alleged herein with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) and have obtained “right to sue letters” from the
EEOC, attached as Exhibit A. Plaintiffs received said “right to sue letters” on June 1,
2010.
PLAINTIFFS
7. Plaintiff Bryan Purcell (hereinafter referred to as “Purcell) is a teacher
who served Dearborn Public Schools for over ten (10) years as an educator. At all
relevant times herein, Plaintiff Purcell was a member of a class of protected persons
under 42 U.S.C., Section 1983, 42 U.S.C., Section 12111 et seq., the Persons With
Disabilities Civil Rights Act of Michigan, MCL 37.1101 et seq. and the Elliott-Larsen
Civil Rights Act of Michigan.
8. Plaintiff Georgene Stergalas (hereinafter referred to as “Stergalas”) is a
teacher who served Dearborn Public Schools for over sixteen (16) years as an educator.
At all relevant times herein, Plaintiff Stergalas was a member of a class of protected
persons under 42 U.S.C., Section 1983, the Whistleblowers Protection Act of Michigan,
MCL 15.361 et seq., and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act of Michigan.
DEFENDANTS
9. Defendant Dearborn Public Schools (“DPS”) is located in Dearborn,
Michigan. DPS is a public entity established and organized under the laws of Michigan,
with the authority to sue and be sued in its own name. DPS is charged with the operation
of the public schools within the district, including Dearborn Fordson High School
(“Fordson”), and promulgates the policies, practices, customs, and usages in furtherance
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thereof. At all relevant times herein, the School District was a “person” acting under the
color of state law pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 and 42 U.S.C. 12111 et seq., and an
“employer” pursuant to the Whistleblowers Protection Act of Michigan, MCL 15.361 et
seq., the Persons With Disabilities Civil Rights Act of Michigan, MCL 37.1101 et seq.,
and the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act of Michigan.
10. Defendant Imad Fadlallah (“Fadlallah”), at all relevant times herein, was
the Principal of Fordson. Defendant Fadlallah is responsible for creating, adopting, and
implementing School District policies, practices, customs, and usages. At all relevant
times herein, for purposes of the Constitutional claims, Defendant Fadlallah was acting in
the scope of his employment and under color of State law. Defendant Fadlallah is sued
individually and in his official capacity and in combination and consort with Defendant
Dearborn Public Schools.
COMMON ALLEGATIONS
11. Plaintiffs re-allege and incorporate by reference all prior paragraphs in this
Complaint as though repeated herein.
12. Plaintiff Purcell has a Master of Arts degree in teaching and is an
award-winning high school science and math teacher at Fordson High School, where he
has taught since 2000. He was a cum laude graduate of Wayne State University, which
he attended on a full merit scholarship. His curriculum, lesson plans, and use of
emerging technology were innovative became the model and standard of excellence in
the science and math departments. Plaintiff Purcell was awarded an Educator’s Award of
Merit by DPS in 2002. Purcell created the physics course of concept physics for the
school district. He also created the district’s astronomy course. Purcell was also the first
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teacher at Fordson to use PowerPoint presentations in his classroom teaching and
lectures, and he taught other teachers in the school how to use it and employ it in
curriculum. Purcell’s teaching skills were so inspiring that he was chosen by Ford Motor
Company to appear teaching one of his “labs” in a documentary the corporation made to
mark the 75th anniversary of Fordson High School.
13. Plaintiff Stergalas has a Masters degree in business education and is an award-
winning high school business and marketing teacher for DPS. She taught for many years
at Fordson High School, and began teaching at Dearborn High School in 2009. She has
been a teacher for DPS since 1995. Stergalas co-created the marketing education
curriculum for the school district and instituted the DECA marketing association for the
school district, which earned the school district additional funds from the State of
Michigan per pupil for instituting this vocational program. Stergalas’ teaching has
garnered numerous awards, and her DPS students have won numerous state and national
awards and scholarships in business and marketing as a direct result of her teaching. One
of her students won a prestigious $40,000.00 (forty thousand dollar) McKelvey
Foundation Entrepreneurial Scholarship for a business he developed under Stergalas’
tutelage. (The McKelvey Foundation was founded and run by the founder of
Monster.com, Andrew McKelvey.) Stergalas’ many teaching awards include Michigan
Marketing Educators Teacher of the Year and the national Occupational and Career Tech
New Teacher of the Year Award.
14. In 2005, Defendant Imad Fadlallah became the principal of Fordson High
School.
15. Fadlallah is a devout Shi’ite Muslim Arab and cousin of the recently deceased
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Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of the
Hezbollah Islamic terrorist group, who issued the fatwah (Islamic religious decree) for
the mass murder of over 300 U.S. Marines and Embassy officials in the 1983 bombings
of Marine Barracks and the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. Hezbollah is on the State
Department terrorist list and has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a
Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity.
16. Defendant Fadlallah has a home in a Hezbollah stronghold of South Lebanon,
and his wife, “Susan,” is the daughter of Hezbollah-backed Speaker of the Lebanese
Parliament, Nabih Berri, who heads the Shi’ite Amal Militia terrorist group that is now a
branch of Hezbollah.
17. Both Plaintiffs, Purcell and Stergalas, are of the Christian faith and are not of
Arab heritage or descent. As such, they were minorities within the confines of Fordson.
18. Though Fordson is a publicly-funded high school, upon taking over
As principal at Fordson and throughout his six years at the helm thereafter, Defendant
Fadlallah used his position to illegally promote Islam, assert organized Islamic religious
observances upon students, and to use Islam and Arabic heritage for discriminatory and
illegal preferences in hiring, promotions, and disciplinary actions with regard to Fordson
employees and teachers.
19. Defendant Fadlallah, since assuming duties as Fordson’s principal, has
systematically weeded out Christian teachers, coaches, and employees, and has
terminated, demoted, or reassigned them because of their Christian beliefs, expressions,
and associations, and/or because they are not Muslims or Arabs and/or do not have
Muslim beliefs, expressions, and associations. Defendant Fadlallah acts in this manner
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because Christian and/or non-Muslim beliefs are inconsistent with his personal Muslim
beliefs and has imposed and promoted a form of sharia (Islamic religious law) at school
activities.
20. In 2007, for instance, Defendant Fadlallah transferred three non-Muslim
employees—a school psychologist and two special education teachers—out of Fordson
and replaced them with a Muslim social worker and an Arab special education teacher
who is married to a Muslim. A Christian math teacher, whom Fadlallah wanted out of
Fordson, was assigned the worst students behaviorally and academically, in order to drive
her out. A Christian teacher’s assistant was harassed by Defendant Fadlallah, until she
left Fordson and moved out of state to avoid the stressful situation.
21. Fordson football players engaged in organized Islamic prayer before football
games in violation of the United States Constitution’s Establishment Clause and
corresponding clauses under Michigan law and the Michigan Constitution, and Mr.
Fadlallah canceled the school’s prom dance because there was mixed dancing between
males and females, and women wore sleeveless gowns, both of which he viewed as
violations of Islamic law. The dance was eventually restored under public pressure, but
conditions that complied with sharia (Islamic law) were put in place, regarding women’s
attire and other conditions. Recently, Fordson High School football team practices were
moved to the middle of the night, in order to bow to Muslim Ramadan observance. On
election day in November 2005, Defendant Fadlallah gave Fordson High School students
who campaigned for Muslim and Arab candidates endorsed by the Muslim-dominated
Arab-American Political Action Committee (“AAPAC”) and against Christian candidates
running for office in the City of Dearborn the day off from school and extra credit to do
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so. Photos show Fordson students at polling places during the school day, holding up a
sign provided to him by AAPAC urging voters not to vote for a Christian candidate for
office, with giant crosses placed strategically on the sign. For illegally using students to
work for Muslim candidates on election day, AAPAC honored Defendant Fadlallah with
an award.
22. Defendant Fadlallah’s illegal, unconstitutional imposition of Islam and its
religious tenets and observances upon a tax-funded, public high school—in full view and
with the full knowledge of Defendant DPS—are relevant to the instant action because
they are part and parcel of the discrimination against both non-Muslim Plaintiffs in the
instant action and the hostile work environment that Defendant Fadlallah and his agents
and immediate subordinates imposed upon both Plaintiffs in the instant action because
they are not Muslim or Arabic and because Plaintiff Stergalas did not abide by Islamic
rules regarding Defendant Fadlallah’s physical assault and hitting of students and urged a
Muslim student to report Fadlallah to authorities.
23. Fadlallah, himself and through his agents and immediate subordinates,
repeatedly harassed Plaintiffs and imposed hostile and impossible conditions on
Plaintiffs, so that they would leave their employ, and so that Fadlallah could accelerate
his pattern of replacing non-Muslim and non-Arabic personnel with Muslim and Arabic
staff members. To date, despite Fadlallah’s retirement in June, DPS continues his pattern
of pan-Muslim and pan-Arab employment discrimination, replacing Fadlallah and other
officials and teachers at the school with more and more Muslim and Arab candidates in
hiring and promotions.
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23. A growing pattern of discrimination against non-Muslims and non-Arabs at
Fordson is evident and escalating.
24. Prior to Defendant Fadlallah’s employment as principal of Fordson High
School in 2005, neither Plaintiff Purcell nor Plaintiff Stergalas ever experienced any
problems of harassment, discrimination, or other conditions of a hostile work
environment at Fordson High School imposed upon them due to their religious and ethnic
background, and—in Plaintiff Purcell’s case—due to his disability, as detailed
hereinafter.
25. Because Plaintiff Fadlallah wanted to purge Fordson of non-Muslim and non-
Arab teachers and employees, he began looking for ways to harass non-Muslim and non-
Arab teachers and other employees to make them leave their positions at Fordson and/or
to get them terminated.
26. Fadlallah began a pattern of microscopically examining attendance records in
excruciating, nitpicking detail and using it as a pretext for discipline of non-Muslim and
non-Arab teachers.
27. Fadlallah also scheduled non-Arab and non-Muslim teachers to teach two
different courses in two different locations on the Fordson campus at the same time,
making it physically impossible to do so.
28. Fadlallah canceled courses taught by the non-Muslim and non-Arab teachers
he wanted eliminated.
29. Fadlallah assigned the worst students—the most academically unfit and those
with the worst behavior and discipline problems—to non-Arab and non-Muslim teachers.
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30. Fadlallah encouraged students to act up and cause problems in the classes of
non-Muslim and non-Arab teachers, and he encouraged those students to file false,
trumped up complaints against those teachers.
31. Fadlallah dispatched his cousin, assistant principal Majed Fadlallah, and his
other chosen assistant principal, Oussama Beydoun, to constantly monitor non-Arab and
non-Muslim teachers’ classes and write up negative reports, as a way to intimidate and
harass those teachers.
32. Plaintiff Purcell has and has had, at all relevant times during his employment
with DPS, “type one” insulin-dependent diabetes, a condition and disability covered by
the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. 12111 et seq.
33. Plaintiff Purcell is required to eat, as well as administer medication, at very
specific times or he will go into shock, a disability of which Defendants Fadlallah and
DPS were aware at all times during Plaintiff Purcell’s employ.
34. Defendant Fadlallah decided to use Plaintiff Purcell’s disability as a way to
squeeze him out of Fordson, and it was made clear that this was being done because
Defendant Fadlallah wanted to replace most non-Muslim and non-Arab teachers with
Muslims and Arabs.
35. To that end, Defendant Fadlallah began scheduling classes at the specific
times during which Purcell must eat and administer medication for his disability.
Fadlallah also began refusing to allow Purcell to take even a brief break during parent-
teacher conferences to eat food and administer medication.
36. Despite Defendants Fadlallah and DPS’ longtime knowledge of Purcell’s
disability and repeated doctors’ notes, they began constantly requesting new doctors’
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