Court rules for IPS in ex-employee’s ‘Moorish Christmas’ suit

An ex-Indianapolis Public Schools employee and minister fired after repeated complaints of physical altercations with students lost his federal discrimination lawsuit that claimed in part he was fired for religious reasons, including his request to be allowed off work to observe “Moorish Christmas.”

Saddam Ali Tinnin-Bey sued IPS after he was fired in 2014 from his position supervising the behavior adjustment center at Joyce Kilmer Academy Elementary School 69 on the near-north side. Tinnin-Bey had worked in positions seeking to modify the behavior of children serving in-school suspension at various IPS schools since 2007.

Tinnin-Bey, who describes himself as a sheik and divine minister of Moorish Science Temple of America, had been disciplined repeatedly for altercations with elementary students, some of which resulted in investigations by the Department of Child Services. Though DCS never substantiated abuse, IPS authorities became increasingly concerned about student complaints of physical altercations involving him. He was suspended in November 2013 and his employment was terminated a few months later.

In his federal discrimination suit, Tinnin-Bey claimed his suspension and ultimate termination was religiously motivated and based on his proclaimed Moorish national identity. Part of his complaint included IPS’s denial of his request to be off work on Moorish Christmas, which he said adherents celebrate on Jan. 8, the birthday of Noble Drew Ali, who established the American Islam-based faith in 1913.

Records in the case show Tinnin-Bey was ordained in the faith in 2012.

The month Tinnin-Bey was suspended, he also was disciplined by IPS for distributing religious material at school and for passing out a personal business card that included his IPS email address.

Tinnin-Bey distributed at school at least one copy of an essay he authored titled, “Attention: Negroes, Blacks, Coloreds and African-Americans Look at What Happened to You!” The three-page Moorish-identity essay likens the African-American experience from slavery to modern times as that of an ant raised by spiders.

On Wednesday, Chief Judge Richard Young of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, Indianapolis, granted IPS’ motion for summary judgment
on Tinnin-Bey’s claims.  

“In this case, a reasonable jury could not find prohibited discrimination. The record is replete with legitimate justifications for Plaintiff’s termination: (1) a student alleged that Plaintiff had inappropriately touched him during a pat-down search; (2) a student alleged that Plaintiff had given her his phone number and said to call him when she turned eighteen; (3) Plaintiff shoved a student, causing the student’s head to hit a wall; (4) a student alleged that Plaintiff body-slammed him into the ground; (5) a student alleged that Plaintiff had dug his fingers into the student’s arms and then grabbed him by the neck; (6) a student alleged that Plaintiff punched him in the stomach; (7) a student alleged that Plaintiff pushed a table into his leg; (8) Plaintiff failed to appear for work on one occasion; and (9) Plaintiff inappropriately argued with parents,” Young wrote.

“Plaintiff could have been legally terminated for any single one of the incidents mentioned above.”

Young’s ruling comes more than six years after Tinnin-Bey lost another civil rights lawsuit filed after his termination from a different position involving the discipline of children.

Tinnin-Bey was fired as a shift manager of the Marion County Juvenile Justice Complex, just a few blocks south of IPS School 69, in 2006. He was fired after a WRTV-6 investigation discovered Tinnin-Bey had served 15 years in prison for possession of heroin and adjudication as a habitual offender. He had prior felony offenses of assault and battery and possession of stolen property.

When Tinnin-Bey applied for a position at the juvenile justice complex in 2004, he disclosed his criminal past and had maintained a clean record since his release from prison a decade earlier. He sued after his termination, claiming sexual harassment by a subordinate, gender discrimination and retaliation.

After a sex-abuse scandal involving staff and juvenile offenders housed at the complex resulted in criminal charges against some staff members, officials examined the employment status of all staff. When administrators learned of Tinnin-Bey’s criminal past, he was fired. Tinnin-Bey formerly went by the name Steven Tinnin.

Tinnin-Bey claimed a basis for his discrimination complaint in his juvenile justice center firing was that other employees who also had criminal records were retained after officials reviewed their employment.

In the earlier case, Judge Sarah Evans Barker granted summary judgment in favor of Marion County in June 2009.

“Mr. Tinnin-Bey points to the fact that he had had a clean record since he was released from prison in 1994 and that he had completely rehabilitated his life and become a positive mentor for youth in the community,” Barker wrote. “The positive transformation that he urges us to consider is both evident from the record before us and clearly laudable.”

But Barker wrote Tinnin-Bey could not prove a prima facie case of discrimination, and employees he compared himself to were not similarly situated.  

“Based on our careful review of the record before us, we are simply unable to find that Mr. Tinnin-Bey’s criminal record was not the honest reason for his termination,” Barker wrote.