You may remember a story I reported on last December about the Obama Justice Department filing suit against the Berkeley School District in Illinois on behalf of Safoora Kahn, a Muslim teacher because the district denied her three weeks special leave during the school term in order to attend the Haj in Mecca.
The Haj, for those of you who don't know is a religious pilgrimage to the Saudi city of Mecca. It's a religious duty all Muslims are supposed to perform once in their lifetime if they are able, where they prostrate themselves before the Ka'aba and a meteorite known as the Sacred Black Stone and perform rites virtually unchanged since it was a pagan idol dedicated to Lah, the Arabian Moon God.
And it lasts all of five days, not the three weeks Khan requested.
Nevertheless, after her request was denied twice, Khan resigned, went to Mecca and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) which referred it to the Department of Justice. They sued on her behalf, and believe it or not, they won.
Safoorah Khan’s religious discrimination lawsuit against the Berkeley School District ended with a settlement that forced the district to pay $75,000 in lost back pay, compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees, not to mention the costs the district incurred in defending itself.
The settlement also requires the district to develop a policy for accommodating religions - and let's be honest, we're only talking about Islam here - including mandatory training on religious accommodations to all board of education members and school supervisors.
“I’m glad that we settled and I hope this does set a precedent,” Khan said. “I hope they realize that hajj means a lot to Muslims and there will be more and more people taking the trip. I hope this helps people and their employers to accommodate Muslims and their requests.”
That statement is a clue as to how this went down. I can almost guarantee that Ms. Kahn talked to her friends at CAIR first before quitting her job and filing the EEOC complaint, which cost her nothing and cost the school district she worked for $75,000, the cost of defending itself against her lawsuit and the cost of hiring a replacement when she resigned in the middle of a school year.
I guarantee you, the Obama DOJ would not have taken a similar case for a Catholic teacher seeking three weeks off for Holy Week, or a Jewish teacher seeking three weeks off for the ten day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
The first commandment of the Obama Administration - Thou shalt appease Islam at all times.
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