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From Jihad Watch:
Obama Justice Department sues on behalf of Muslim teacher who demanded three weeks off for hajj in the middle of the school year
“This is a political lawsuit to placate Muslims.”
"Justice Department sues on behalf of Muslim teacher, triggering debate," by Jerry Markon in the Washington Post, March 22 (thanks to Twostellas):
BERKELEY, Ill. — Safoorah Khan had taught middle school math for only nine months in this tiny Chicago suburb when she made an unusual request. She wanted three weeks off for a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The school district, faced with losing its only math lab instructor during the critical end-of-semester marking period, said no. Khan, a devout Muslim, resigned and made the trip anyway.
Justice Department lawyers examined the same set of facts and reached a different conclusion: that the school district’s decision amounted to outright discrimination against Khan. They filed an unusual lawsuit, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.
As the case moves forward in federal court in Chicago, it has triggered debate over whether the Justice Department was following a purely legal path or whether suing on Khan’s behalf was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to reach out to Muslims....
Considering that Khan was under no obligation, Islamic or otherwise, to make the hajj at that time, it seems clear that this is part of Obama's relentless, consistently pursued policy of appeasement of Muslim demands.
The lawsuit, filed in December, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go to accommodate workers’ religious practices — a key issue as the nation grows more multicultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legal questions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing because the 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.
“It sounds like a very dubious judgment and a real legal reach,” said Michael B. Mukasey, who was attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. “The upper reaches of the Justice Department should be calling people to account for this.”
His successors in the Obama administration counter that they are upholding a sacred principle: the right of every American to be free of religious bias in the workplace. “This was a profoundly personal request by a person of faith,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who compared the case to protecting “the religious liberty that our forefathers came to this country for.”...
Perez denied any political motive in the Berkeley lawsuit, saying it was pursued in part to fight “a real head wind of intolerance against Muslim communities.” People in the rapidly growing Muslim community in Chicago’s western suburbs praised the Justice Department’s involvement.
“It rings the bell of justice that they will fight for a Muslim wanting to perform a religious act,” said Shaykh Abdool Rahman Khan, resident scholar at the Islamic Foundation mosque near Berkeley. “That certainly can win the hearts of many people in the Muslim world.”...
Yeah, like all those roads and hospitals and schools in Afghanistan have made the Afghans love us so.
The support for Obama’s Justice Department is much more mixed. Government lawyers, said longtime village President Michael A. Esposito, are “targeting a small community.”
“The school district just wanted a teacher in the room for those three weeks. They didn’t care if she was a Martian, a Muslim or a Catholic,” said Esposito, a political independent. “How come we bow down to certain religious groups? Why don’t we go out of our way for the Baptists or the Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
Why indeed?
Khan, 29, who grew up in North Carolina and Arkansas, was happy in the job, said her lawyer, Kamran A. Memon. But she longed to make the hajj, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which Muslims are obligated to do once. It would not have fallen on her summer break for about nine years.
She would be 38 then. Clearly way too old to make the hajj.
“This was the first year she was financially able to do it,” Memon said. “It’s her religious belief that a Muslim must go for hajj quickly . . . that it’s a sin to delay.” Khan declined to comment.
Islamic scholars generally say that Muslims who have the ability to go on the hajj but delay it for no specific reason are committing a major sin. Is the fact that Khan has work obligations a specific reason to delay her hajj? Certainly.
In August 2008, Khan requested an unpaid leave for the first three weeks of December that year. The district said the leave was unrelated to Khan’s job and not authorized by the teacher union contract, according to court documents. Khan resigned in a letter to the school board.
“They put her in a position where she had to choose,” Memon said. “Berkeley has qualified subs. She didn’t feel her absence would cause any problem at all.”
He attributed the criticism of the lawsuit, in part, to “anti-Muslim hostility.”
Of course. That's what it always is, right? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that her request is entirely unreasonable. Oh no! It's just all about anti-Muslim hate! You'd think that Islamic supremacists would grow ashamed of constantly playing this card in the most outlandish of contexts, but they don't appear to be capable of shame.
Federal intervention
In November 2008, Khan filed a religious discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and last year, the commission found cause for discrimination and referred the case to the Justice Department.
Justice lawyers sued in December, the first lawsuit in a pilot project to increase coordination on employment discrimination between the department’s Civil Rights Division and the EEOC.
The suit argued that the district violated the Civil Rights Act by failing to accommodate Khan’s religious beliefs. By “compelling” Khan to choose between her job and religion, the lawsuit says, the district forced her discharge. The government is seeking back pay, damages and reinstatement for Khan, and a court order requiring Berkeley schools to find ways to accommodate religious practices.
A trial date has not been set.
Berkeley school officials declined to comment but said in court papers that Khan’s request was “unreasonable” and would have imposed an “undue hardship.”
Obviously.
Federal law requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” religious practices unless doing so would impose such a hardship. The Supreme Court has interpreted the provision narrowly, saying accommodations should be granted only if they impose a minimal burden on employers.
Hans von Spakovsky, a Justice Department civil rights official in the Bush administration, said, “No jury anywhere would think that a teacher leaving for three weeks during a crucial time at the end of a semester is reasonable.”
“This is a political lawsuit to placate Muslims,” he said....
That sums it up.
A few miles away at the Islamic Foundation, support for Khan was uniform.
"Uniform"? Don't these greasy Islamophobes know that Islam is not a monolith?
“If she was a Jew, would they treat her the same way?” Nabih Kamaan of Bloomingdale, Ill., asked as he arrived for Friday prayers.
Answer: yes. But not Kamaan's reflexive Islamic antisemitism.
“What if she was sick? What if she had a baby?” said Kamaan, who added that the lawsuit “is the right thing to do.”
Getting sick and having a baby is not the sort of thing one can ordinarily schedule with precision. The hajj, on the other hand, must be made once in a lifetime. Why did she have to make it right then? To establish and reinforce the point that non-Muslims must always accommodate Muslim demands, no matter how unreasonable. And now Khan has Obama's help to do that.
Posted by Robert on March 23, 2011 5:34 AM
Obama Justice Department sues on behalf of Muslim teacher who demanded three weeks off for hajj in the middle of the school year
“This is a political lawsuit to placate Muslims.”
"Justice Department sues on behalf of Muslim teacher, triggering debate," by Jerry Markon in the Washington Post, March 22 (thanks to Twostellas):
BERKELEY, Ill. — Safoorah Khan had taught middle school math for only nine months in this tiny Chicago suburb when she made an unusual request. She wanted three weeks off for a pilgrimage to Mecca.
The school district, faced with losing its only math lab instructor during the critical end-of-semester marking period, said no. Khan, a devout Muslim, resigned and made the trip anyway.
Justice Department lawyers examined the same set of facts and reached a different conclusion: that the school district’s decision amounted to outright discrimination against Khan. They filed an unusual lawsuit, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.
As the case moves forward in federal court in Chicago, it has triggered debate over whether the Justice Department was following a purely legal path or whether suing on Khan’s behalf was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to reach out to Muslims....
Considering that Khan was under no obligation, Islamic or otherwise, to make the hajj at that time, it seems clear that this is part of Obama's relentless, consistently pursued policy of appeasement of Muslim demands.
The lawsuit, filed in December, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go to accommodate workers’ religious practices — a key issue as the nation grows more multicultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legal questions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing because the 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.
“It sounds like a very dubious judgment and a real legal reach,” said Michael B. Mukasey, who was attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. “The upper reaches of the Justice Department should be calling people to account for this.”
His successors in the Obama administration counter that they are upholding a sacred principle: the right of every American to be free of religious bias in the workplace. “This was a profoundly personal request by a person of faith,” said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who compared the case to protecting “the religious liberty that our forefathers came to this country for.”...
Perez denied any political motive in the Berkeley lawsuit, saying it was pursued in part to fight “a real head wind of intolerance against Muslim communities.” People in the rapidly growing Muslim community in Chicago’s western suburbs praised the Justice Department’s involvement.
“It rings the bell of justice that they will fight for a Muslim wanting to perform a religious act,” said Shaykh Abdool Rahman Khan, resident scholar at the Islamic Foundation mosque near Berkeley. “That certainly can win the hearts of many people in the Muslim world.”...
Yeah, like all those roads and hospitals and schools in Afghanistan have made the Afghans love us so.
The support for Obama’s Justice Department is much more mixed. Government lawyers, said longtime village President Michael A. Esposito, are “targeting a small community.”
“The school district just wanted a teacher in the room for those three weeks. They didn’t care if she was a Martian, a Muslim or a Catholic,” said Esposito, a political independent. “How come we bow down to certain religious groups? Why don’t we go out of our way for the Baptists or the Jehovah’s Witnesses?”
Why indeed?
Khan, 29, who grew up in North Carolina and Arkansas, was happy in the job, said her lawyer, Kamran A. Memon. But she longed to make the hajj, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which Muslims are obligated to do once. It would not have fallen on her summer break for about nine years.
She would be 38 then. Clearly way too old to make the hajj.
“This was the first year she was financially able to do it,” Memon said. “It’s her religious belief that a Muslim must go for hajj quickly . . . that it’s a sin to delay.” Khan declined to comment.
Islamic scholars generally say that Muslims who have the ability to go on the hajj but delay it for no specific reason are committing a major sin. Is the fact that Khan has work obligations a specific reason to delay her hajj? Certainly.
In August 2008, Khan requested an unpaid leave for the first three weeks of December that year. The district said the leave was unrelated to Khan’s job and not authorized by the teacher union contract, according to court documents. Khan resigned in a letter to the school board.
“They put her in a position where she had to choose,” Memon said. “Berkeley has qualified subs. She didn’t feel her absence would cause any problem at all.”
He attributed the criticism of the lawsuit, in part, to “anti-Muslim hostility.”
Of course. That's what it always is, right? It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that her request is entirely unreasonable. Oh no! It's just all about anti-Muslim hate! You'd think that Islamic supremacists would grow ashamed of constantly playing this card in the most outlandish of contexts, but they don't appear to be capable of shame.
Federal intervention
In November 2008, Khan filed a religious discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and last year, the commission found cause for discrimination and referred the case to the Justice Department.
Justice lawyers sued in December, the first lawsuit in a pilot project to increase coordination on employment discrimination between the department’s Civil Rights Division and the EEOC.
The suit argued that the district violated the Civil Rights Act by failing to accommodate Khan’s religious beliefs. By “compelling” Khan to choose between her job and religion, the lawsuit says, the district forced her discharge. The government is seeking back pay, damages and reinstatement for Khan, and a court order requiring Berkeley schools to find ways to accommodate religious practices.
A trial date has not been set.
Berkeley school officials declined to comment but said in court papers that Khan’s request was “unreasonable” and would have imposed an “undue hardship.”
Obviously.
Federal law requires employers to “reasonably accommodate” religious practices unless doing so would impose such a hardship. The Supreme Court has interpreted the provision narrowly, saying accommodations should be granted only if they impose a minimal burden on employers.
Hans von Spakovsky, a Justice Department civil rights official in the Bush administration, said, “No jury anywhere would think that a teacher leaving for three weeks during a crucial time at the end of a semester is reasonable.”
“This is a political lawsuit to placate Muslims,” he said....
That sums it up.
A few miles away at the Islamic Foundation, support for Khan was uniform.
"Uniform"? Don't these greasy Islamophobes know that Islam is not a monolith?
“If she was a Jew, would they treat her the same way?” Nabih Kamaan of Bloomingdale, Ill., asked as he arrived for Friday prayers.
Answer: yes. But not Kamaan's reflexive Islamic antisemitism.
“What if she was sick? What if she had a baby?” said Kamaan, who added that the lawsuit “is the right thing to do.”
Getting sick and having a baby is not the sort of thing one can ordinarily schedule with precision. The hajj, on the other hand, must be made once in a lifetime. Why did she have to make it right then? To establish and reinforce the point that non-Muslims must always accommodate Muslim demands, no matter how unreasonable. And now Khan has Obama's help to do that.
Posted by Robert on March 23, 2011 5:34 AM
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