Robert Spencer : He remains on the Scottsdale faculty and just completed his latest World Politics course with no changes in its content. CAIR sued both the college district and Damask individually, but the courts agreed that, as a public employee, he had qualified immunity for issues related to his work.

An adverse ruling would reverberate far beyond his classroom. “It would affect every single school teacher, K-12, in any public institution with a teaching or education format. Who’d want to do that? Who’d want to be an educator of any sort? You personally could be sued by these creepy organizations like CAIR.”

CAIR’s lawsuit wanted to force the removal of course materials it claimed to “have the primary effect of disapproving of Islam.” It also took issue with a slide in Damask’s lessons that featured an image of Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

“Their arguments are gibberish and I think they know that,” Damask said. But CAIR sees it as “‘a legal jihad we’re waging here. We’re looking to intimidate.’ Which is an odd position for a civil rights group.”

Sabra’s complaint focused on quiz questions which asked whether Islamic terrorists try to emulate Muhammad, whether terrorism is “encouraged in Islamic doctrine,” and whether it is justified within Islam.

The questions, Sabra complained, forced him to “either disavow his religion or be punished by getting the answers wrong on the quiz.”

After the quiz, Sabra wrote to Damask to express his concern.

The course wasn’t “‘for’ or ‘against’ anything” Damask responded, “but aim[ed] to explain international politics.” The quiz questions did not aim to determine whether the interpretations were right or wrong, “but rather to convey what terrorists believe,” the Ninth Circuit court said.

But Sabra never tried to ask Damask to clarify the intent behind the questions. He never filed a complaint with the school. Instead, he took his grievance to social media, which stoked emotions and led to threats against Damask and the school.

“It went from zero to 100,” Damask said, “from having a class for 24 years to now you’re being dragged into federal court.”

“But in teaching about terrorism, understanding what is motivating tens of thousands of young men across the Muslim world, middle and upper class,” who are joining jihad is relevant and important, he said. “It’s same sources is motivating them. The point is not ‘are they correct or incorrect about that source,’ the point is that’s what’s motivating them.”

The section on Islamic terrorism, the ruling noted, represented “a fragment of a single module that was itself just one-sixth of the [World Politics] course.”

And Damask’s course did not trample on the First Amendment’s Establishment clause, as CAIR argued.

“Indeed, the most instructive authority we have identified goes the other way,” the Ninth Circuit ruling said. It cited a Fourth Circuit case from 2019 in which a Christian student objected to questions about Islam’s shahada, a declaration that there “is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” Correctly knowing its content, the ruling found, was not a requirement that the student “engage in any devotional practice related to Islam.” Instead, it was simply “an academic exercise to demonstrate her understanding of the world history curriculum.”

CAIR also claimed that Damask frustrated its work to fight “Islamophobia” because it had to work with a religious scholar to develop a program rebutting his coursework….