American Muslim

Damages Awarded for Post-9/11 Religious Discrimination

Salaam Alaikum,

I have been reading a lot of news stories like this of late on the Muslim lawyer list servs that I belong to and it comes as no surprise that slowly but surely, Muslims in the workforce are also causing changes in employment discrimination law. I understand that Alamo has policies for all workers, but those policies should not take away from an article of faith as innocuous as a head scarf. Did someone say the French Ministry of Education?
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PHOENIX -- *A federal jury has ordered Alamo Rent A Car to pay a Muslimwoman $287,640 for firing her because she refused to remove a head scarf shewas wearing during the holy month of Ramadan.

The firing of Bilan Nur, then 22, came just four months after the Sept. 11,2001 terror attacks.The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the company forwhat it termed a "post 9/11 backlash," alleging that she was fired becauseof her religious beliefs in violation of the CivilRight Act of 1964.U.S.

District Court Judge Roslyn O. Silver ruled last year that thegovernment had proven religious discrimination and Alamo had shown no proof that it had taken reasonable steps to allow Nur to follow her beliefs before firing her. That left the jury in the trial that ended Friday with only the question ofhow much damages to award, said Mary Jo O'Neill, the regional attorney forthe EEOC.

The jury in the three-day trial awarded Nur $21,640 in back wages, $16,000in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. Nur, a Somali who fled the war-ravaged country and came to the U.S. in 1998,was hired by Alamo as a rental agent at its Phoenix office in November,1999. Her job performance was described as "fine," until the events leading to herfiring, Judge Silver wrote in her ruling. But that changed in 2001, when Nur asked her bosses at Alamo for permission to wear a head scarf during Ramadan, which began November 16. She was told that she could wear a scarf while in the back office, but must remove it when she came to the counter to help customers. The company's dress code did not specifically ban scarves but contained aprovision barring any "garments or item of clothing not specifically mentioned in the policy."

Nur showed up for work wearing a head scarf anyway, and was sent home and issued a written warning. The next day, she again arrived at work wearing ascarf and was written up and sent home, then suspended and fired.The company argued in its court papers that Nur's religious beliefs did not conflict with her job requirements because her "personal practice" did not require that she always wear a head scarf during Ramadan, Silver wrote. They noted that the year before, management had ordered her not to wear ascarf and she complied. She also worked for several days after Ramadan beganin 2001 without raising the issue, suggesting to the company that her religious beliefs were not that strong. Silver rejected that argument, writing that Nur's words and actions --consistently telling supervisors she needed to wear a head covering andcontinuing to wear one -- was consistent with a sincere religious belief. She also said there was no testimony showing Nur hadn't worn a scarf allthrough the holy period. Alamo spokesman Charles L. Pulley said Saturday the company would have nocomment on the verdict. Alamo is owned byTulsa, Okla.-based Vanguard Car Rental Group Inc., which also owns National CarRental.

O'Neill said Alamo continued to deny it had violated Title VII of the CivilRights Act during the nearly six years since the case was filed, and the judge's ruling and Friday's jury award showed they were wrong."Title VII protects people of all religious beliefs," O'Neill said. "No oneshould have to sacrifice their religious beliefs in order to keep a job."