A Muslim teacher in Illinois who lost her post because she went on a pilgrimage to Mecca will receive $75,000 from the school district that forced her to choose between her job and her religion, the Justice Department has announced.
The settlement on behalf of Safoorah Khan, awarding her back pay, compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees, also compels the school district in the Chicago suburb of Berkeley to put in place a religious-accommodation policy in line with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and to instruct district officials on how to comply with the policy, the DOJ said.
“Employees should not have to choose between practicing their religion and their jobs,” Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said in a DOJ statement. The statement described the suit as an important instance of cooperation between the DOJ and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
As Main Justice reported last March, Perez described Khan’s request to take three weeks’ unpaid leave to go on the pilgrimage in 2008 as a “profoundly personal request by a person of faith.” At the time, Khan had taught middle school math for nine months. When the school district said it couldn’t spare her, she left her job and went on the pilgrimage anyhow.
Khan filed a charge of discrimination against the school district with the Chicago office of the EEOC. When that agency could not reach a settlement with the district, the case was referred to the DOJ, which filed a suit on Khan’s behalf in the Northern District of Illinois.
“The school district just wanted a teacher in the room for those three weeks,” Berkeley Village President Michael A. Esposito said in denying religious discrimination. “They didn’t care if she was a Martian, a Muslim or a Catholic.” There were also suggestions that the DOJ sued on Khan’s behalf to court favor with Muslims.
The DOJ insisted that the case was about religious freedom, not politics, and the outcome is a vindication not just for the DOJ but for the EEOC. “As the favorable resolution of this case demonstrates, closer collaboration between the EEOC and the Department of Justice will strengthen the enforcement of this nation’s civil rights laws,” said Jacqueline A. Berrien, chairwoman of the EEOC.
