Wednesday, April 08, 2009

No-risk Nevada Gamble Pays Jackpot

At least when you play the slots it costs you a quarter. A Nevada school district just shelled out $400,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a Muslim student who claimed other students threatened to kill her because she wore a headscarf. Here's free money:

The Washoe County School District in the Reno area will give Egyptian former student Jana Elhifny $350,000 and her non-Muslim friend and supporter Stephanie Hart $50,000 as part of the civil settlement.

Elhifny and her family came to Reno from Egypt in 2003, and the girl enrolled as a freshman at North Valleys High School.

She didn't finish the year after she told teachers and administrators that someone had threatened to kill her in the stairwell because of her Muslim hijab or head scarf, the district's independent attorney in the case, Robert Cox, told FOXNews.com.

Shortly afterwards, Cox said, Elhifny filed the lawsuit and returned to Egypt, Stephanie Hart, who had nothing to do with any of this and has since dropped out of high school to have a baby. (“Muslim Girl Gets $400G From Nevada School District in Head Scarf Bully Case”).

$350,000 isn’t a bad dowry in Egypt. (The other $50K went to Elhifny’s BFF, who had nothing to do with any of this, except for being friends with the Muslim girl, and allegedly being ostracized. (Hey kids, the joke's on us for getting bullied, being ostracized, and befriending weirdos for free!) Hart was so upset she dropped out, moved to California, and had a baby).

This one doesn’t pass the smell test. Sure there are bullies in high school. And I’ll bet anybody who ever got hassled by one--or ganged up on by multiple bullies--can give you very particular details about the SOBs--even decades later. (If you don't remember any bullies, you were one of them). Yet according to the school district’s attorney, the Muslim victim “was unable to give any description of her tormenter — including his or her gender, size and tone of voice.”

Really? Not even the gender? (Or, as we used to say in English, "not even the sex"?) Must make her flashbacks kind of bland.

This stinks for about fifty reasons. Maybe if she’d dropped out and gone into therapy or transferred schools. But move back to Egypt and marry her fiancĂ©? That almost makes it sound as if coming to America was a quick way to accumulate the downpayment on an Egyptian bungalow that doesn’t have a tunnel to Gaza under it . (DU has been unable to confirm that Elhifny was unable to identify her fiancĂ© by gender, size and tone of voice.)

And filing a lawsuit and moving back to Egypt? Okay, so she’s disappointed in America because a short-tall-medium boy-girl high-low-voice threatened to kill her for wearing hijab. But going back to Egypt also protects her from ever being cross-examined, or otherwise haled into court to answer for any of her allegations, even if they turn out to be phony.

Nothing to do but sit and wait for the check to come. And enjoy your marital bliss Egyptian-style.

Just like the Somali meat processing case, the defendants caved in only “to end lengthy and ‘expensive litigation.’” Elhifny's alleged death threat was in 2003, six years ago, when she was a freshman.

This is a case of bullying for the textbooks. The only question is: which party here is the bully?

3 comments:

Fordson Alumnus said...

Okay, so what do we do with the Arab boys in Dearborn schools who threaten their classmates? Should we sue the Dearborn schools for $400K on each occurrence? Here's a common refrain from those bullies: "I'm not American, I'm Muslim! If you don't like it, I'll kick your ass!"

Anonymous said...

again this is a poor comentary on the legal system- not muslims or arabs. but yes, the people in this case, if true, did abuse the system. there is no doubt.

Anonymous said...

Wrong again Anonymous. This is not "poor commentary" about anything.

Muslims are responsible for the lawsuit and Islam compelled them to act this way.