A former associate professor of business administration claims in a federal lawsuit that the University of Illinois Springfield banned him from campus and denied him emeritus status because of his race and Iranian origin.
Ardeshir Lohrasbi, a U.S. citizen, was an associate professor from 1980 to 2011 and received tenure in 1986. In its answer to the lawsuit, UIS says Lohrasbi was banned because of a 2011 discussion in which he mentioned guns, and not because of his ancestry.
The lawsuit says Lohrasbi was discussing the death of a friend and said that “sometimes people react to situations with guns and machine guns.” He says he meant sometimes people commit suicide.