A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a lawsuit from a Muslim attorney who accused a Jewish couple of conspiring to get her fired by publicizing her anti-Israel social media posts.
Zohra Khorashi, described in court papers as a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin who worked at Chartwell Law Offices in Miami from 2018 to 2024, filed the suit in the Southern District of Florida last year. It sought hefty compensatory and punitive damages.
Her complaint accused Gadi Beer, a Pennsylvania attorney who helped found Chartwell in 2002, of doxing her over posts she made to her public Instagram account after Hamas slaughtered Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023.
The complaint also accused Mr. Beer’s wife, an attorney who was a regional director in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights at the time, of harassing Ms. Khorashi under a different name on social media in the months before her termination on Feb. 29, 2024.
Their exchanges snowballed until the Jewish advocacy groups Jewhatedb and StopAntisemitism.org posted Ms. Khorashi’s name and employer with screenshots of her posts on social media the day before she was fired, leading to the law firm receiving a rash of complaints.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra rejected her claims for damages as materially “non-actionable” under state and federal law because none of the opinions the Beers posted online were objectively false.
She further noted that Ms. Khorashi’s lawyers failed to prove any communication between the Beers and the advocacy groups that would indicate a conspiracy to end her employment.
“In particular, Plaintiff does not dispute that the Instagram post submitted to Jewhatedb was her actual Instagram post,” Judge Becerra, a Biden appointee, wrote in a 25-page order dated Aug. 27 and publicized this week. “Indeed, Plaintiff nowhere alleges that Defendants altered her Instagram post.”
StopAntisemitism posted screenshots of Ms. Khorashi’s “thelawyermomlife” Instagram account on X and noted she had nearly 200,000 followers.
The Instagram posts in question started days after the October 2023 attacks and continued for several months. The posts compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler, accused Israel of controlling U.S. foreign policy and declared that “all of our hands are stained with the blood of the innocent lives” taken by the conflict.
“Imagine being a Jewish client of hers,” StopAntisemitism noted in its post, commenting on the screenshots.
According to court papers, Chartwell terminated Ms. Khorashi a day later because her social media activity “did not align with the Firm’s values and beliefs.”
It remains unclear whether Ms. Khorashi will appeal. The Washington Times reached out to the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group that represented her in court.
Attorneys from the Lawfare Project, a Jewish civil rights group that served as co-counsel for the defense with Ken Turkel and David Hayes of the firm Turkel Cuva Barrios Guerra, said the ruling vindicates the Beers’ right to challenge Ms. Khorashi’s online posts attacking Zionism and Israel’s military action in Gaza after the October 2023 attacks.
“People who speak out against antisemitism should not have to face meritless lawsuits for sharing truthful public information and expressing their views,” said Benjamin Ryberg, attorney and chief operating officer at the Lawfare Project.
Mr. and Mrs. Beer, who asked to withhold her first name from this article, applauded the lawsuit’s dismissal in a statement emailed to The Times.
“Efforts to use litigation to intimidate or silence Jewish voices cannot go unchallenged, and we are grateful to organizations like The Lawfare Project that are willing to stand up against attempts to chill lawful speech and advocacy,” the Beers said.
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