A University of Texas at Dallas professor is suing school administrators and local law enforcement after he said his constitutional rights were violated and he was discriminated against at an on-campus protest last year.
In a federal civil rights federal suit filed Sunday, assistant professor Ali Asgar Alibhai alleged university officials and officers “punished” him when he was among 20 people arrested at a student-led demonstration last year in support of Palestinians amid the ongoing war in Gaza. Alibhai says he was observing and recording the protest at the time of his arrest.
The suit, first reported by UTD student newspaper The Retrograde claims Richard Benson, university president at the time, imposed retaliatory restrictions on professors and treated minority faculty members harsher than white faculty members who were detained. Alibhai is South Asian and Muslim…