The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed a lawsuit on Friday attempting to force New Jersey Transit to rehire a railroad manager who was fired because he burned pages of the Koran during a Sept. 11 protest outside the proposed site of an Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero.
Derek Fenton was off duty and not wearing any clothes that would have identified him as a NJ Transit worker when he burned three pages of the Koran at a protest outside 51 Park Place, the proposed site for an Islamic community center, according to the lawsuit which was filed in U.S. District Court in Newark. He was at the protest for no more than a couple of minutes before police whisked him away for his own protection.
“He believed then, and still believes, that locating the center so close to Ground Zero is insensitive and inflammatory, and he concluded that it would be effective and appropriate to do something insensitive and inflammatory as a protest,” the lawsuit states.
Though Mr. Fenton wasn’t charged with anything, his picture ran in a newspaper. Two days later, after several NJ Transit employees complained that Mr. Fenton’s actions had offended them, he was fired from his job as railroad yard manager, the lawsuit states. Mr. Fenton had worked at NJ Transit for 11 years. At the time, NJ Transit only informed Mr. Fenton that he had violated NJ Transit’s “code of ethics.” Later, NJ Transit officials said that Mr. Fenton’s firing was related to burning the Koran pages outside the Islamic center, the lawsuit states.
A NJ Transit spokeswoman said the agency’s policy isn’t to comment on pending lawsuits.
Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the ACLU’s New Jersey chapter, said, “We feel we have an extremely strong case. A man lost his job because he expressed himself, and the Constitution protects people who work for the government from being fired for engaging in free speech.”
While defending Mr. Fenton in his lawsuit, the ACLU of New Jersey is also a proponent of the Islamic center’s right to build near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.