In a story that slipped past my radar last week, the Justice Department announced a settlement with the Berkeley, Illinois school district. School officials had denied a teacher's unpaid leave-of-absence request for the purpose of a religious pilgrimage to Mecca. The Justice Department sued on her behalf claiming religious discrimination under the 1964 Civil Rights Act and last week the case settled.
Safoorah Khan will receive $75,000 in lost pay, attorney's fees and compensatory damages, and Berkeley agrees to implement a training program and a an appropriate religious accommodation policy.
“Employees should not have to choose between practicing their religion and their jobs,” said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “ The facts of this case show the consequences of an employer refusing to engage in any interactive process to understand and work with an employee to find an accommodation of the employee’s religious beliefs that will not cause undue hardship to the employer. We are pleased that Berkeley School District has agreed to implement a training program that puts into place an interactive process to ensure that each request for a religious accommodation will be considered on a case-by-case basis and granted if it poses no undue hardship on the school district.”
The Justice Department press release indicates this is the first case in a new project of cooperation between the DOJ and the EEOC.
