Bratz vs. Barbie: Racism Against Iranians Cause of Trial Verdict?
Last year, a juror in the Barbie vs. Bratz trial was removed for making “slurs about the ethnicity of Isaac Larian, the Jewish, Iranian-born CEO of MGA, maker of Bratz.” The jury-member’s hypocritcal verbal attack, calling Iranians: “rude” and “thieves” who have “stolen other person’s [sic] ideas”, leaves us pondering whether this juror should move out of their sheer glass house today…Or tomorrow.
District Judge Stephen Larson oversimplified the remarks made during trial deliberations in 2008, and at the time, concluded: “Although the remarks offended and upset several of the jurors, the remarks did not, in any way, affect or influence the decision made by the jury.”
Larian’s more recent response?
“The verdict that was put against us was only based on racism,” he said. “I am saddened that today, in this day and age when for the first time in the history of America an African American is running for president, that there is still racism in this country.”
Now, the Anti-Defamation League, the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), the Iranian American Jewish Federation (IAJF), and the Iranian American Bar Association (IABA) join MGA and Larian in appealing the case with Mattel. The National Law Journal reported that the group has filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of MGA Entertainment’s appeal.
“PAAIA is firmly committed to ensuring fair treatment under the law for Iranian Americans and combating all instances of bias or discrimination against them on the basis of ethnicity, national origin or religion,” PAAIA Executive Director, Babak Hoghooghi, tells Persianesque exclusively.
“We strongly believe that the remarks of a juror during jury deliberations in the case of Mattel vs MGA [made about Mr. Larian] to the effect that Iranians are ‘rude’ and ‘thieves of others’ ideas’, introduced bias in those proceedings and amounted to a denial of fair trial for the Iranian American defendant. PAAIA takes such matters very seriously and therefore joined with several other organizations to file a friend-of-the-court brief before the appeals court.”
The Iranian-American Bar Association, a signatory to the amicus brief, is also active in this legal battle.
“As a bar association whose membership consists of Iranian-American legal practitioners, the allegations regarding a juror’s anti-Iranian biased comments in the case of MGA Entertainment, Inc. et al. vs. Mattel Inc. obviously concerns the Iranian American Bar Association (IABA),” explains Salman Elmi, IABA’s DC-Chapter representative.
“This is of course an issue of great concern due to the fact that in addition to the obvious bias of the juror against individuals of Iranian origin, the comments regarding Iranians being “thieves” and having “stolen other person’s ideas” go to the very issue being litigated. As a result of our concern for both the deprivation of Mr. Larian’s procedural due process rights, and our wish to put a halt to the tacit approval of such discriminatory remarks. It is IABA’s hope that the Court will grant Mr. Larian a new trial. It is only via the granting of a new trial—with a jury free from such discriminatory and potentially infectious remarks—that the judicial process can proceed in an untarnished fashion.”
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