After being detained during a university ceremony in the spring, Kambiz Fattahi (GRD ’08) has vowed to hold the university responsible. But Georgetown officials have since denied Fattahi’s allegations of wrongdoing, claiming that the detainment was purely standard procedure.

When two Department of Public Safety officers removed the School of Foreign Service graduate student from the audience at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ commencement ceremony on May 18 and detained him in a hallway in McDonough Gymnasium, Fattahi said that they treated him in a “humiliating” and “unprofessional” manner. Fattahi, who was born in Iran, has alleged that he was a victim of ethnic profiling.

But after an investigation by Georgetown’s Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action, the university denies Fattahi’s allegations of harassment and ethnic profiling. A confidential summary of the review dated July 17 that was provided to THE HOYA by Fattahi said that DPS “responded in an appropriately calibrated way” and that there is “no evidence that the officers . violated the university’s policies.”

According to the summary report, the IDEAA investigation included interviews with DPS officers, university administrators and Fattahi. The investigation also included reviews of Fattahi’s DPS complaint, his Bias Related Incident Report against the university filed on May 25 and DPS taped radio transmissions for the relevant time period.

Fattahi, who received a summary of the investigation after a meeting with Director for IDEAA’s Affirmative Action Programs arjorie Powell and Associate Director Michael Smith in June, has since refused to accept invitations to meet with Provost James O’Donnell and IDEAA Vice President Rosemary Kilkenny to discuss the findings of the investigation.

“The university is trying to cover up the guards’ actions, but it’s quite shameful,” he added. “They think they can get away with it because there’s no witness.”

Fattahi said he does not intend to let the matter rest and that he plans to eventually bring a lawsuit against the university. Since the incident, he has been in contact with several legal consultants, including the American Civil Liberties Union, private investigators and Georgetown law professors, he said.

“Basically, it’s pretty clear that I’m going to pursue this,” he said. “It’s going to be a long, long fight. .I’m not going to let them get away with this.”

Kilkenny declined to comment.

Fattahi was removed from the ceremony in McDonough after DPS received a report from a member in the audience that he was looking around nervously and constantly checking inside his bag, according to the report summary. Fattahi said that he was probably searching for his friends and checking his cell phone inside his shoulder bag.

In his complaint to DPS filed the day after the incident, Fattahi said that the officers made “sarcastic remarks about Babylon and the Tigris River” when they saw from his business card that he works as a reporter for the BBC Persian Service. He was interrogated in a public hallway and said that the questioning would have been more appropriate in a more private location.

“You can call it humiliation, harassment, public defamation,” he said.

The university report said that the hallway was an appropriate place for the interrogation.

“According to the officers, the hallway location, immediately outside the arena, was selected to minimize attention to their interaction and disruption to the ceremony, and because the noise in the main gym made it difficult to communicate,” the report said.

Fattahi said that he was detained for about half an hour – although the university investigation concluded that he was detained for only 13 minutes – and that the officers continued to watch him after he returned to his seat. Fattahi added that DPS Director Darryl Harrison arrived in the hallway after the officers verified Fattahi’s identity by calling outside officials, but Harrison did not intervene when the officers checked his bag.

The IDEAA concluded in its report summary, however, that the officers acted in accordance with DPS policy, which states that “unusual or suspicious actions of persons may prompt field interviews.” DPS officers denied that they continued to monitor Fattahi after he returned to his seat, the report said.

The investigation also found that the university had heightened security measures after 32 students were fatally shot at Virginia Tech in April, and because an anonymous caller threatened to commit mass murder in the ICC less than two weeks before the commencement ceremony. In addition, the report said, extra precautions were taken because a dignitary with State Department security was in the audience.

The report added that DPS officers questioned Fattahi’s national origin only to determine whether they would need translation services. “The officers deny making any remarks regarding Babylon and the Tigris River, and the review found no evidence that either officer made comments of an insensitive or discriminatory manner about Mr. Fattahi’s ethnic background or national origin,” the report said.

“They are standing their ground quite firm,” Fattahi said. “But I’m quite persistent.”