Jason Reza Jorjani is an Iranian American writer, former New Jersey Institute of Technology lecturer, and former editor-in-chief of the publishing company Arktos Media. He was also the founder of the AltRight Corporation and AltRight.com, which he collaborated on with alt-right leader 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 and that the AltRight Corporation was a "miscarriage" and "total failure".
Jorjani is an admirer of the Persian Empire and envisions a new Indo-Europeanworld society in a cosmopolitan manner similar to the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great with the philosophical teachings of the Gathas of Zarathustra. Consequently, Jorjani is a member of the Iranian Renaissance cultural movement, which, among other things, advocates for an "organic cultural awareness" of the massive importance ancient Iran has had on Western civilization and Occidental philosophy and a "re-connection" between the contemporary Islamic Republic of Iran and its ancient Persian cultural heritage. According to Jorjani, the tomb of Cyrus the Great has become the "new mecca" of the Iranian youth, who also often wear the Faravahar as a pendant and celebrate ancient Persian holidays. He has cited Stanley Kubrick as his favorite filmmaker and Franz Kafka as his favorite literary figure. Jorjani's ideas have been described by journalist Olivia Hardhill as influenced by Dark Enlightenment philosophy, particularly that of Nick Land. Jorjani claims to not be a nationalist or racist and identifies himself as a progressive and a feminist. After resigning from AltRight, he stated that the organization was "reduced, basically, to a platform for organizing alt-right rallies attended by some very questionable individuals who I want not very much to do with" and "If I had known that this is where things would wind up, I would never had gotten involved in the first place." Jorjani has identified himself as a Zionist, stating that he has "always believed that there is absolutely no conflict between the legitimate national interests of Iran and Israel. In fact, in the case of each, no other nation on Earth has more of a mutual interest than the other." In 2019, Jorjani pledged his support for Tulsi Gabbard in the 2020 United States presidential election.
Controversy
Spencer and Jorjani had met at a National Policy Institute conference, at which both of them spoke. At the conference attendees gave Nazi salutes as Spencer led the crowd in shouting "Hail 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. In September 2017, Jorjani was suspended from his teaching position at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in response to a covert video in which Jorjani predicted a future where concentration camps would return to Europe and Adolf Hitler would appear on European currency. 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. He has predicted that Muslim citizens and immigrants will be deported from Europe by 2050, and stated that such mass-expulsions would "follow from continued, ill-advised policies regarding mass-migration in Europe". In February 2017, campus officials of NJIT 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 Jornani'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.”
