"I started to build my life, because I'm an immigrant," he says. "I lost [my] condominium, I lost [my] car. Nobody will give me credit for 10 years. For my life I lost everything."

While Abramian says he does not regret complaining about his treatment, he says he would not have lost his job if he had kept quiet about the anti-Russian slurs that were directed against him.

He says others on the staff--including a number of Chinese Ph.D. students who, like him, were using the job to pursue degrees through the University--endured the same mistreatment, but did not complain.

"They didn't fight, but right now they're professors," he says.

Although the jury rejected Harvard's account of Abramian's dismissal, the University's allegations of aggressive and dishonest behavior made Abramian virtually unhireable.

"I couldn't find [a] job, maybe because I was terminated for fighting, for filing [a] false report," he says. "Who needs me?"

Abramian ultimately found a job teaching math and computer science to disadvantaged kids in a local college preparation program. And he won acceptance to the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

With a letter of admission and Harvard no longer his most-recent employer, he was able to find a security guard job again and begin to finance his education.