Jason Reza Jorjani (born February 21, 1981) is an American philosopher and writer. He was a lecturer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, former editor-in-chief of the publishing company Arktos Media, and co-founder of the AltRight Corporation with Richard Spencer.
Early life Jason Reza Jorjani was born and raised in Manhattan, New York, the only child of an Iranian immigrant father of Qajar descent and a mother who comes from a working-class family of "northern European heritage", more specifically Irish and Scandinavian. He is a dual citizen of the United States and Iran. He attended the Dalton School, on the Upper East Side. After high school, he attended Fordham University for a year before transferring to New York University, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees. In 2013, he received a PhD in philosophy from Stony Brook University on Long Island.
Career While serving as a full-time faculty member at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Jorjani taught courses on science, technology, and society (STS), the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, and the history of Iran. In 2016, Jorjani became editor of alt-right publisher Arktos Media.
Academic suspension and lawsuit In September 2017, Jorjani was suspended from his teaching position at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in response to a covert video recorded by Patrik Hermansson, a Swedish antifascist activist, who presented himself to Jorjani under the false identity "Erik Hellberg", in which Jorjani predicted a future where concentration camps would return to Europe and Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great would appear on European currency by 2050. Hermansson met with Jorjani at an Irish bar in midtown Manhattan in June, where the two talked about a future in which Europe embraces fascism. "It's going to end with the expulsion of the majority of migrants including citizens, who are of Muslim descent, generally" Jorjani said. "That's how it's going to end. It's going to end with concentration camps and expulsion and war. At the cost of a few hundred million people." Jorjani claimed that his remarks were spliced into pieces from a two-hour conversation and rearranged out of context, and that the prediction was a warning of a dystopian future, not an endorsement. In February 2017, NJIT officials told Jorjani they would not renew his annual teaching contract. In July 2018, Jorjani filed for a $25M lawsuit against NJIT, alleging that campus officials violated Jorjani's constitutional right to freedom of speech and association and that campus leaders and colleagues subsequently defamed Jorjani in campus-wide emails and in the student newspaper. Denise Anderson, a spokeswoman for the school, denied the allegations and said, "Dr. Jorjani's claims of wrongdoing by the university or its representatives are untrue, and we intend to vigorously defend against any such claims." In March 2019, U.S. District Judge William Martini ruled that Jorjani does not have a case for defamation, stating: "The general allegation is implausible because the facts alleged do not support an inference that defendants knew the recording was edited to misconstrue plaintiff's actual views."
Association with Richard Spencer Jorjani had met Richard Spencer at a conference from the white supremacist think tank National Policy Institute, at which both of them spoke. At the conference, attendees gave Nazi salutes as Spencer led the crowd in shouting "Heil Trump!" Jorjani subsequently claimed that he did not intend to speak at the conference and that he rejected the white nationalist ideology Spencer began integrating into their organization.
Founding of the AltRight Corporation In January 2017, Jorjani co-founded AltRight Corporation and AltRight.com with Richard Spencer before resigning less than a year later in August 2017, for the stated reasons that he wanted to commit to the Iranian Renaissance Organization, a 501(c)(3) cultural organization. Jorjani ultimately took a negative view of the AltRight Corporation, referring to it as a "miscarriage" and "total failure".
Involvement in politics
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