Veteran Cook County, Illinois, public defender Debra Gassman is suing her boss and her office after they reprimanded her for displaying a photograph of herself holding a rifle in front of an Israeli flag in a statement of solidarity with Israel against terror.
Gassman, who has worked as a public defender for more than two decades, is also a veteran of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and moved the photo out of her personal office into a common office display area after the Hamas terror attacks of October 7.
Thereafter, she was told that the photo was the equivalent of a “swastika” to those who oppose Israel.
CWBChicago reported:
Debra Gassman’s lawsuit claims she has “proudly displayed” the picture, which shows her posing with a rifle in front of an Israeli flag, in her work office for “over 20 years.” But, she says, that all changed when she moved the photo to a common area after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Co-workers routinely display art, pictures, cards, and other items in the same space, the suit claimed.
…
“Executive management reprimanded her for putting it there,” the suit states, and she removed it “promptly” and returned it to her private office.
But, Gassman claims, a high-ranking deputy in the office, Parle Roe-Taylor, “confiscated” the picture during an “unannounced and unprecedented search of her private office.” Roe-Taylor prohibited her from displaying the image in her office, even though it had been there for over 20 years, the suit claims.
Ironically, Gassman works in the Skokie office of the Cook County Public Defender. Skokie is a suburb of Chicago with a high Jewish population, and which became internationally famous for resisting a proposed neo-Nazi march through it in 1977 and 1978.
According to ABC Chicago, Gassman is not seeking damages in the civil rights lawsuit, but simply wants to be able to display the photo in her office.
Gassman has sued on behalf of the civil rights of Jews before, notably in a case against a condominium board two decades ago.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
