The founding principal of the city’s only Arabic-language public school will not sue the Department of Education, she said Tuesday, despite a ruling from a federal commission that the city discriminated against her by forcing her to resign in 2007.
The former principal, Debbie Almontaser, filed a complaint last year with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which later said that the department “succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel, and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on D.O.E. as an employer.”
Though the findings by the commission are nonbinding, the letter was viewed as giving Ms. Almontaser backing to file a federal lawsuit, which could have resulted in a ruling for “millions of dollars,” her lawyer said. But Ms. Almontaser concluded that going through a lawsuit that could take years would not be worth it.
“Although I have been greatly injured personally and professionally by the D.O.E., I have decided that it is time for me to move on with my professional and personal life,” she said in a statement. “Additional litigation of the discrimination claim would mean reliving the unfortunate and painful events.”
Ms. Almontaser and the school faced criticism from the moment in early 2007 that the department announced plans to open it. But the controversy boiled over after some critics tried to link her to T-shirts with the slogan “Intifada NYC” that were being sold by an organization of Arab women.
Ms. Almontaser said education officials later pressured her to grant an interview to The New York Post, which published an article saying she had played down the shirts’ significance. She said The Post had distorted her words. The federal commission wrote that The Post’s article prompted the city to force Ms. Almontaser, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, to resign, and that the decision was “on account of her race, religion and national origin.”
City officials have said that she resigned voluntarily, but lawyers for Ms. Almontaser later obtained an e-mail message from Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his chief spokesman informing them that officials planned to tell her they had “lost confidence in her ability to lead the school and will be replacing her.”
Ms. Almontaser declined to be interviewed but did release a short video statement along with her written remarks.
When the federal commission issued its finding in March, it asked the Department of Education to reach “just resolution” with Ms. Almontaser and to consider her demands of reinstatement to her job as principal, back pay, legal fees and damages of $300,000. At the time, a lawyer for the city said the department “in no way discriminated against Ms. Almontaser” and would continue to fight “against her groundless allegations.”
Michael Best, the chief lawyer for the Education Department, said in a statement Tuesday that the federal commission’s finding was “without any basis whatsoever, and the D.O.E. in no way discriminated against Ms. Almontaser.”
Ms. Almontaser remains with the department helping coordinate after-school activities, but she is earning about $71,000, about $50,000 less than she did as principal.
Alan Levine, Ms. Almontaser’s lawyer, said that after they discussed the process of fighting a wrongful discharge, she decided there would be too much “emotional pain” to pursue it.
“The process can be so aggressive that that makes you feel like the wrongdoer rather than the wronged,” Mr. Levine said.