School Sued Over Muslim Teacher's Pilgrimage

[sabra]

Source: CBS News/AP

Federal Gov't Takes Suburban Chicago School District to Court Over Refusal to Grant Unpaid Leave for Religious Trip

(AP) The federal government sued a suburban Chicago school district Monday for denying a Muslim middle school teacher unpaid leave to make a pilgrimage to Mecca that is a central part of her religion.

In a civil rights case, the department said the school district in Berkeley, Ill., denied the request of Safoorah Khan on grounds that her requested leave was unrelated to her professional duties and was not set forth in the contract between the school district and the teachers union. In doing so the school district violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by failing to reasonably accommodate her religious practices, the government said.

Khan wanted to perform the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia which every adult Muslim is supposed to make at least once in a lifetime if they are physically and financially able to. Millions go each year.

Khan started as a middle school teacher for Berkeley School District 87 - about 15 miles west of Chicago - in 2007. In 2008, she asked for almost three weeks of unpaid leave to perform the Hajj. After the district twice denied her request, Khan wrote the board that "based on her religious beliefs, she could not justify delaying performing hajj," and resigned shortly thereafter, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Chicago.

...

The government asked the court to order the school district to adopt policies that reasonably accommodate its employees' religious practices and beliefs, and to reinstate Khan with back pay and also pay her compensatory damages.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/14/national/main7148181.shtml?tag=stack

[cleanhippie]

1. I hope she wins...big.

I am no fan of any religion, but as long as a religion is a personal thing, I support everyone's right to believe what they want to. The school district was obviously impeding her rights.

[naaman fletcher]

2. Nobody was telling her she can't believe what she wants to.

It seems to me that they were telling her "hey we have a scheduled school year that was/is well known in advance and part of the job of being a teacher is to be here during the school year".

[cleanhippie]

3. Maybe.

Also, schools allow unpaid leave for women to have babies. Could one not apply the same mentality to that as well and deny a woman unpaid maternity leave?
I see your point, and its valid, but the courts have ruled that employers must make reasonable accommodations for religious beliefs, and allowing a person 3 weeks of unpaid leave is certainly reasonable. Had she asked for PAID leave, well, THAT would have been very, very different. Hopefully you can see my point.

[MedicalAdmin]

4. Actually they were telling her that.

It's not like she was asking for every year off. She was asking for a 1 time unpaid leave. It is a requirement of the muslim faith that you go on 1 hajj as soon as you are able to and her school told her no. So she took a principled stand.

If the school has never granted a mid year unpaid leave for any reason before then that is one thing, but it is a requirement of law to make reasonable accomodations for religion as well as family leave for sickness. etc. It wasn't an unreasonable request.

The district was wrong. And they won't have to pay much except the money they would have paid her anyway had they decided not to be such twits.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

6. well said. nt

[La Lioness Priyanka]

5. yet christians get christmas off, isnt that a bit convenient? additionally look into

the civil rights act. businesses have to make reasonable accommodation for religion. unpaid leave seems extremely reasonable for something one is planning on doing once in their lifetime.

[MedicalAdmin]

8. Yes, the entire school calander is set up to accomodate...

The christian calandar. In a school district I worked in I was told in no uncertain terms that Wednesdays after school were reserved for "church night" and no teachers at that school were going to mess with that. And what big winter holiday do we get off? And do public schools close for Easter? It's pretty clear that accomodations are built into the schools already IF you are a Christian. Getting other days off is pretty hard. I know some B'ahia who would like to get the occassional holy day off but it just doesn't happen for them so that local faith community celebrates together BEFORE work at about 4AM. Yeesh.

The schools also follow an agrarian calendar but that is not germain to this OP.

It's clear that this teacher was discriminated against in some way and she took a principled stand. She didn't sue - she quit and she did so in order to follow her religious guidelines. It is a once in a lifetime event and it should have been allowed. Epic Fail on the part of the school administration.

[TheMadMonk]

51. The timing of the request and the exact nature of the refusal may...

...have a lot of bearing on the matter.

Allowances perforce have to be made for unforseen matters such as family emergency, sickness and pregnancy. Mandatory religious observances are not unforseeable. And a big part of having such obligations is self sacrifice and arranging your own life to meet those obligations. Yes employers are required to make reasonable accomodation to their employees religious needs, but that is accomodation, not total ascession.


Did she ask for leave in the same school year of her request? It appears so.

Was she told, "no not this year", or "no never at all"?


Arrangements made prior to making the request, by a third party, or simply "well I've saved up enough now" don't constitute good and sufficient reason to essentially demand immediate time off. For crying out loud, the woman worked at the school for barely 12 months before asking it to incur a significant expense (relief/agency workers don't come cheap at the best of times) to accomodate her wants.

[forty6]

54. Um she asked for UN-PAID leave, so her salary would cover the costs

of substitute teachers. Substitute teachers are temporary workers, making the base teacher pay, with no medical or other benefits.
They are paid per diem. Three weeks of a substitute is cheaper than paying a salaried teacher in all school districts I have been connected with. The teacher would have actually SAVED the school system money.

Furthermore, schools customarily grant unpaid leave to women who become pregnant, or women,(or a few men) who must care for a gravely sick family member, and NO ADVANCE NOTICE is required for those unforseeable instances.

The ONLY reason not to grant this teacher a PLANNED leave was because of the reason for the leave request. Had the teacher lied and said she had to care for her sick mother someplace far away, she would have been granted the unpaid leave. We all know that.

[TheMadMonk]

63. Overhead costs to simply keep her on the payroll (without pay)...

...are not totally insignificant. It costs more money to do the paperwork for the temp hire. It costs more money to hire someone from an agency.

Rough rule of thumb, a temporary hire will cost 1 1/2 - 2 times as much as the worker they are replacing EVEN AT A LOWER BASE RATE.


Planned? In as much as she had time to ask in advance and be knocked back twice, yes. But appart from that, it really appears to be a case of "I've saved the airfare. I'm going THIS year and the world can rearrange itself to suit."

If you can show where she was told "You are not going while you work for us." I'll seriously entertain your premise that she was deliberately discriminated against on religious grounds. If she'd been there a few years, I'd be a little more understanding of her asking for an expedited leave if she came into a little unexpected money, or received an invitation from a third party.

However, from the article linked in the OP the only conclusion that can be drawn is she asked and was knocked back twice. She then quit. The timing of that quitting might also be telling. Did she resign immediately after the second knockback, or did she give the appearance of accepting the decision and quit just before it was time to begin her journey?


BTW you might want to note: What you suggested she might have done would almost certainly have gotten her fired and blackballed, without hope of appeal, if later found out.

[uppityperson]

30. if those christians hadn't put christmas on top of solstice, it would be "winter break", actually

that is what they are calling it many places. Unpaid leave seems reasonable for this case and I hope she wins.

[CreekDog]

12. we are a new nation of laws not your opinions

Ill take what the laws say on the matter thank you very much.

Your opinion is something you are welcome to but the idea that it should be followed over a courts enforcement of a civil rights law is ridiculously arrogant.

[No Elephants]

73. People are free to believe a case has been wrongly decided.

Heck, I often disagree with even the Supremes, don't you?

[alfredo]

57. Schools are out during the Christian holidays.

[wordpix]

48. I don't agree -- a teacher who gets summer + Xmas, Thxgiving, & spring breaks off

every year has a responsibility to her classes and her employer to be there when school's in session. Otherwise, get another job.

It's one thing to take a day or two off for Jewish holidays, Kwaanza, or take a long weekend for the hajj. But 3 weeks? That's absurd. She shouldn't be a teacher if she expects to have all the breaks of the school year + 3 weeks off.

Typical school breaks:

Thanksgiving: Wed.-Sun. Thanksg. week (3 days)
Xmas: approx. 12/18 or 12/20-1/3 this year (about 2 wks, maybe 2 1/2)
Feb. or Mar. breaks: About a week
Summer: 2 months

Total: approx. 3 months off

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

9. yeah, she is special cos she is a minority and school calendars

are picked to accommodate the majority religion. however the civil rights act, created for this reason, spells out that reasonable accommodations need to be made for religious beliefs.

the quality of democratic beliefs is falling by the day. you would think since 1964 we have gotten more progressive, but apparently not.

[Freddie Stubbs]

11. The key word is "reasonable"

Who decides what a "reasonable" accommodation is?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

13. reasonable is one that can be shown to have no undue hardship on a business

and given that other teachers need to take time off, for other reasons. it can't be impossible to replace her for a month. they can't claim monetary hardship, because it was supposed to be unpaid leave.

[Creative]

15. I don't believe "reasonable" covers abandoning your students for three weeks.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. is she a parent or a teacher? how is abandonment? if she were sick

or were having a baby or some other reason, would these kids have perished?

[Creative]

22. Do you think Mormons should be allowed to use this law for their missions?

[cleanhippie]

36. Perhaps, yes.

Why not? Its unpaid leave, like a sabbatical. Not costing anything at all.

[LanternWaste]

20. Maternity leave is unreasonable?

Maternity leave is unreasonable?

"I don't believe "reasonable" covers abandoning your students for three weeks..."

Without any qualifiers, your statement directly implies just that.

[Creative]

21. Point taken. The law in question was designed to cover maternity, family illnesses, etc.

Not a religious retreat.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

24. no . it wasnt. the 1964 civil rights law covers religion

and reasonable accommodate, unless the state can prove undue hardship. which in this case they can't.

[Tempest]

28. "Creative" is getting creative

And ignoring the facts while getting there.

[No Elephants]

67. The second half of the equation, though, is whether asking for almost 3 extra weeks off

is "reasonable," given she could fulfill her once in a lifetime obligation in a year when she would need much less time off, or none at all?

And I am not so sure leaving junior high kids with a sub for an extra 3 weeks isn't "undue hardship" in terrms of the kids' learning.

Please see Reply 66.

[cleanhippie]

37. Wrong, the law was created EXPLICITLY for this kind of thing.

You should read up on the Civil Rights Act.

[No Elephants]

68. "Reasonable accommodation" and "undue hardship" are the explicit terms.

Both are wide open to interpretion. But yes, absent undue hardship, an employer must make reasonable accommodation for religious observance.

Please see Reply 66.

[No Elephants]

69. You seem to be confusing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993

Civil rights are anchored directly to our Bill of Rights. Maternity and paternity leave are not.

[No Elephants]

70. Civil rights, whether under the Act or the Constitution itself, is always a balance of interests.

Hajj," a once in a lifetime obligation. Nothing says this woman has to do it in any particular year. She can easily do it in a year when Hajj coincides with her summer break, requiring no time off, or her spring break or winter break, requiring much less time off.

Some women are absolutely forbidden to do things that would enable a woman to time a pregnancy. Now, that doesn't mean they are entitled to maternity leave. However, the Family and Medical Leave Act expressly covers that.

We don't, however, have a separate Hajj Act and, if we did, it would probably be unconstitutional, as favoring Islam over other religions. And that is what I think this judge really did.

[cleanhippie]

35. Hahahahahaha! "Abandoning your students"!!!!! Hahahaha!

Do you say the same for women who take maternity leave too? Are they "abandoning" their students?

[wordpix]

49. +1

[cleanhippie]

34. In this case, the courts will.

[Creative]

14. The school calendar is not based on a religious calendar, it is based on the agrarian calendar.

It is not reasonable for her to abandon her students for three weeks during the school year.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. as a matter of fact it is reasonable to have a substitute teacher

for 3 weeks. no child will perish because of it. moreover its not a monetary hardship, given that she was foregoing pay.

also there is much debate if the calendar is really based on agrarian needs, since dead of winter is not a huge agrarian need. the school calendar covers christian needs very completely.

[Creative]

23. Debate...? Christian needs...? Oh boy...you have revealed the true nature

of your objections very quickly.

How about Mormon Missions, Christian proselytizing festivals, etc.?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

25. exactly what do you think my mission is? christmas and easter

are holidays that accommodate christian needs for religious freedom

[Tempest]

29. And you have revealed just how far over your head you are

She's right, the school calendar accommodates Christian holidays nicely.

And it has nothing to do with the agrarian calendar as you claimed (as I explained to you in an earlier post).


"How about Mormon Missions, Christian proselytizing festivals, etc.?"

Non sequitur. Try sticking to the issue.

[Creative]

31. Mormon Missions are quite similar in that you have to leave the area for quite some time.

Would you support this same right being extended to Mormons?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

32. you really dont see a difference in 24 months rather than 3 weeks?

really?

and in that case, it would still be necessary for the school to demonstrate hardship.

so no, off the top of my head, without knowing the differences i cant equate one to the other, not can i say that mormon missions dont fall under this law. it really depends. 2 years is a lot longer, to be gone from ones job, than 3 weeks.

additionally the hajj can be done only at a particular time, which i am not sure is necessary condition for a mission

[Creative]

39. Yeah, I have enough common sense to see the difference. The problem with these

things is that they keep e-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g. So, where does it end? Another poster indicates that Mormon Missions would be okay; thus, I assume there would be support for this position as well.

School teachers already have three or four months off. That should be enough time to engage in any sort of religious festival.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

46. rights expand. its the nature of rights. and no the religious festivities

have to fall into the time that the holidays are in order to celebrate them. if they fall outside that realm, reasonable accommodation needs to be made.

[marshall]

44. Actually the Hajj just takes one week

I'm not sure why she was asking for three weeks off to perform a ritual that is done in one.

[riderinthestorm]

47. I know. My Muslim friends tell me the same. Not sure why she wants 3 wks.

:shrug: I'm thinking (like virtually everything else in real life), that there's more here than meets the eye.

[Tempest]

59. Planning, travel and adjusting to time zone differences

Any time I plan to take a two week vacation across the country to visit my mother I always take three weeks off so I'm not jumping from work directly to vacation and then back again.

[riderinthestorm]

61. The length of time for the actual ritual is 3 - 6 days depending on how extensive you are.

6 days max.

[No Elephants]

72. Wiki says that. A very observant friend who made the Pilgrimage says only 2-3 days need be

spent in Mecca. :shrug:

[MedicalAdmin]

53. Bad example my friend.

Here's why. The morman missions are taken by kids just out of high school by and large..In contrast even a new teacher will have at least 4 years of post secondary and often 5 or 6 years.

So your example will not happen until Walmart takes over public education and decides that degrees are not necessary for teaching. Missionaries will not, by definition, ever be found in a classroom as a teacher.

[wordpix]

50. dead of winter is not huge agrarian need but was hard to get around in snow/cold

when people were riding in horse or ox carts

[No Elephants]

75. Not sure they had ten days off then, though. Are you?

And frozen soil was not confined to Christmas or New Year. Nor was it ever a big issue in December in Florida.

Besides, few kids going to school in ox carts nowadays, and no law says we have to have the same school year as existed prior to the Industrial Revolution, yet we still have a break at Christmas time.

So, when you look at the whole picture, it's pretty clear what that break is about.

[dflprincess]

64. No, the dead of winter is not a time of huge agrarian needs

that's why school terms are held them - the kids weren't needed to help on the farm in the winter.

[Tempest]

26. You're wrong

What purpose does having three weeks off for Christmas have to do with agrarian?

The agrarian calendar was used for summer vacations, not holiday vacations.

[cleanhippie]

38. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.

[No Elephants]

71. Summer vacation, maybe. Not Christmas break or Easter break.

Or Good Friday. Kids in my school got off for religious ed and novenas, too. My neighborhood was almost all Italian.

Me and Bobby McHugh were the only ones left in class. We got to sit silently or read silently. (Would make a better story if his name were Bobby McGee, but it wasn't.)

[Recursion]

74. More progressive

you would think since 1964 we have gotten more progressive

Why on earth would you think that? Hell, just look at the generation gap at DU; those of us on the younger end of the spectrum grew up in a more conservative era and it shows.

The US has a history of swinging back and forth; we only interpret it today as a constant victory for liberalism because we've been pretty good at shaping the interpretation of history (remember, the actual historical "Progressives" were Republicans who wanted to outlaw alcohol -- and succeeded).

If you buy the notion of US "alignments" or "party systems", we're at the end of a conservative one that lasted (roughly) from '68 to '08 (these are always easier to identify the farther away you get in history). It's the sixth party system the US has had; the preceding 5th party system was very liberal and lasted, again roughly, from '32 to '68 (there are various sets of criteria for drawing the lines between the systems). But, they all seem to last around 40 years (ie, one political generation). Transition Presidents like Nixon or, it seems, Obama usually end up making decisions that seem incongruous later -- today it's surprising to hear, for example, that Nixon started the Environmental Protection Agency; presumably many of Obama's decisions will seem strange to people 40 years from now since they will have projected their sense of what "liberal" and "conservative" mean back onto today.

[No Elephants]

76. SOME younger DUers are more conservative. Not all.

[Recursion]

78. If what you got from that is that I think younger DUers are "more conservative"...

...then I didn't make my point well at all.

What it means to be "conservative" and "liberal" changes over time. We grew up in an era that was, by 50's and 60's standards, more conservative; that means we think of liberals as being different things, not that we're more conservative people.

[kestrel91316]

10. Nah. She deserves the SAME right to reasonable accomodation of her

religious practice. Just like Christians have had since time immemorial in the US. It was UNPAID leave she was asking for.

Maybe she should have just lied and said she was having a baby. THAT would make the "christians" happy.

Oh, wait, no it wouldn't, because it would be a MUSLIN baby.

[thereismore]

18. I find it difficult to sympathize with a teacher who wants to do a bogus religious

ritual instead of teaching children. It's not a family emergency. It's totally elective. She can save the money and go another time. Maybe after some more cuts to the Dept of Education, which should not take too long. :shrug:

[La Lioness Priyanka]

33. the hajj will always fall within the school year due to its timing

additionally all religions are considered bogus by the people not participating in them. for the law to apply, the belief does not have to be rational, just sincerely held.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. Always? As far as I can tell, it moves through the Gregorian calendar

So that, by 2020, it'll be at the end of July and beginning of August

it takes place annually between the 8th and 12th days of Dhu-al-Hijjah, the final month of the lunar Islamic calendar

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1864624,00.html

http://www.islamicfinder.org/Hcal/hdate_year.php?year=2020&base=g

Seems to me that if she waited until 2018, it would fall in the American summer break. The question will be whether she should have taken the job in 2007 without checking if her plan to take time off in 2008 (which, I presume, was the first year in which money or family commitments allowed her to go) was acceptable, and if there is a requirement on Muslims to demand time off the moment money and family commitments allow the journey, or if work commitments count among those things that allow a deferment of a few years.

[harun]

43. It moves back about 10 days each year. So eventually would make it to summer but

it would be quite a while. Looking it up, probably would have to wait more than 10 years.

[hughee99]

45. In 2019 it is around the end of August, and will be over the summer

in the following few years.

[Recursion]

79. No, it rotates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Adha#Eid_al-Adha_in_the_Gregorian_Calendar

It will be in the summer in 2018.

[hunter]

19. Odds are the school district would have got a better teacher back.

The best teaches are not the ones who teach to the test, they are the teachers who bring their life experience and humanity into their classrooms.

I hope Khan wins her lawsuit and the district bureaucracy learns something. The bureaucracy may never see the bigger picture, that teachers who bring their diverse life experiences to the classroom are valuable, but maybe in the future they won't be so inclined to violate the civil rights of their employees.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Tempest]

27. I know of two Jewish teachers given time off for pilgrimages to Israel

One in high school, one in college. Both during the school year.

We had substitute teachers and there was nothing detrimental to their absences.

[Bigmack]

40. Not to be Solomonic about it...

but the district where I worked would let people have leaves for good purposes like this (not that I agree with any religion) without pay and if they agreed to pay the substitute pay, too.

I think that's fair.

Guy wanted to go on a once-in-a-lifetime trip with his son. One week.

Lost the pay and had to pay the sub wage of $75.

He thought it was a bargain.

[muriel_volestrangler]

42. That sounds reasonable to me - get her to cover any extra cost of a substitute (nt)

[MedicalAdmin]

60. What extra costs?

With her going unpaid for that time the school district is actually saving $$$.

[muriel_volestrangler]

62. There are admin costs associated with getting replacements

and, if you actually want to keep the quality of education up to the same level, you may need to pay the replacement to meet the standard teacher to hand things over. I'm sure any responsible teacher would want to keep the quality of teaching up.

[MedicalAdmin]

65. Like what?

Every district I am aware of requires teachers tomfimd and arrange subs for every planned leave as well as prep all lesson plans for the duration of the leave. In addition the subs are paid less per hour and zero benefits.

On any rational basis any costs associated with the sub are more than offset by the cost saved by not having to pay the teacher.

Or is there something I am missing here?

[xor]

56. is that $75/day?

Is that all substitute teachers get paid usually?

[xor]

55. Seems a bit screwy to me... It didn't state how far in advanced she asked for this though

I'd think if she gave ample time to prepare for it, then they really should have cut her some slack... On the other hand, I can see how it might be problematic if even more teachers started requesting 3 week breaks in the middle of the year and they cited this case to get it. I dunno.

[X_Digger]

58. I'm not a religious person, but the Civil Rights Act is the law.

Whether that means kirpans for Sikhs, those little bun caps for Mennonites, or unpaid leave for a Muslim woman to make a once a lifetime religious trip. I don't have to agree with, or even like it, but I do have to tolerate it.

[No Elephants]

66. So, we're all going to pretend 3 weeks or a kid in middle school with a sub

is the same as 3 weeks in middle school with your regular teacher? (Almost 15 school days out of about 170 school days---minus incleement weather days--in the entire calendar year?)


It's a once in a lifetime obligation, so why can't she "make Hajj" when Hajj coincides with winter or spring school break, and take fewer days off, or with summer vacation, when she'd need zero days off?


I taught in public school for a year once and got the fish eye and a lot of disbelieving snark from the principal when I took 3 work days off because I had the German measles.


Equal human rights for all humans is important to me, but I see this as over-compensation. At the same time, I care a lot more about infringing on human rights, while this may be only excessive accommodation, at the very worst. So, ultimately, this is not a big issue for me, one way or the other.

[CBGLuthier]

77. I personally despise the muslim religion and culture BUT I take her side on this issue