A former physician assistant student, Ihab Hassan, filed a lawsuit against Central Michigan University and its administrators, claiming discrimination based on disability and national origin, and retaliation.

The lawsuit claims that CMU applied different standards to Hassan than to other students, which led to his dismissal from the program.

A CMU spokesperson told Central Michigan Life that “CMU does not comment on pending litigation.”

Hassan said in an interview that the university discriminated against him during his studies several times. First, Hassan told CM Life that in 2023, PA’s program director Debra Kimball Christie denied him of retaking a women's health exam.

He was suspended for a year. After another student was allowed to retake the exam, Christie told Hassan he could remediate, too, and retake the questions he got wrong, Hassan said.

“I sat there waiting to take the exam, and I kept waiting,” Hassan said. “It turned out Christie was writing a whole new exam for me, ... even though she didn’t teach us even one lecture about that class.”

Hassan said the wait and the situation intensified his ADHD and PTSD. He has a disability after imprisonment and torture in Iraq.

“The torture Mr. Hassan experienced resulted in about eight plastic and orthognathic surgeries in the United States to repair some of the physical harm he experienced, which included – beyond the shattered knee – having acid spilt on his scalp, having his nose and teeth broken, and cigarettes put out on his torso,” the lawsuit read.

In Christie’s office, Hassan failed her exam and alleged that he wasn’t taught those questions that he missed, he said.

“She got mad at me, and she kept shouting at me,” Hassan said.

Eventually, Hassan retook the original exam and passed. He returned to classes in January 2024.

But he said coming back to school was hard because he forgot how to navigate the clinic’s student tracking system. Despite the software challenges, Hassan said he passed his rotations.

In September 2024, he was dismissed due to violations that he was never informed of before.

“They accused me of ... fabricated and falsified (case logs),” Hassan said. “These case logs got approved by my academic advisor, and she didn’t give me any feedback about those.”

After CMU dismissed him, Hassan moved back to Iraq and was separated from his family.

The lawsuit that Hassan filed on Dec. 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan requests relief and award of compensatory and punitive damages.

Now, Hassan said he wants justice for himself and his family.

“My older daughter was eager and very driven to be a physician or physician assistant,” Hassan said. “Since that happened with me, she doesn't even want to talk about any medical field position.

“I want to make sure that those individuals cannot practice their authority in a wrong way and send a clear message to those (Board of) Trustees members at CMU that they need to not only to sit on their thrones, rather than review and follow and make sure that everybody in that school gets the same treatment.”