The Cleveland Plain-Dealer has a piece today on the growing number of religious discrimination claims filed with the EEOC, profiling Sahud Hasan, an Ohio woman who sued Gap, Inc. alleging discrimination due to her religious head scarf.
The number of complaints like Hasan's is steadily rising. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission statistics show that religious discrimination complaints in workplace settings have more than doubled from a little over a decade ago, resulting in roughly $10 million in settlements. Last year, nearly 3,800 were filed — 136 of them with the Cleveland EEOC office.
More than doubled since 1999! That's probably the result both of increased religious diversity as well as increased awareness and enforcement of employment discrimination issues, but hopefully an increase in education and training of employers can start to have an effect as well. Workplace Religious Freedom Act, anyone?
