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Abal Zaidi, 31, was a corrections officer for the Kane County Sheriff's Department. He's also an observant Muslim, which he says requires him to have a beard. In December 2006, Sheriff Pat Perez announced that all officers had to be clean-shaven; Zaidi asked for an exception, and he says two days later, he was asked to resign. Zaidi filed a religious discrimination suit, seeking unspecified damages and an apology.
According to the U.S. Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, the Civil Rights Act requires employers to "reasonably accommodate employees' sincerely held religious practices unless doing so would impose an undue hardship on the employer." Courts have ruled in favor of employees' rights to wear beards before, under slightly different circumstances. And as a government employee, Zaidi also has First Amendment arguments on his side in addition to employment discrimination law.
In other religious discrimination news, the Seventh Circuit Court ruled last week (.pdf) that a lack of accommodation does not constitute discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. In Bloch vs. Shoreline Towers, the plaintiff sued her condo association for banning her display of a mezuzah. The court ruled, 2-1, that the condo association had a right to do so because the building's rule was neutral—banning all objects in a hallway, not just religious ones, or specifically Jewish ones. While federal statues are required to have accommodations, according to the majority ruling, "none of these laws applies to regulations adopted by private condo associations."
The majority opinion goes on to say, "We cannot create an accommodation requirement for religion (race, sex, and so on). Our job is not to make the law the best it can be, but to enforce the law actually enacted."
But the dissenting opinion sees things a bit differently.
According to Judge Wood, the Blochs have "a straightforward claim of intentional discrimination based on their Jewish religion and ethnicity."
Wood also says that the rule isn't neutral at all, and that its reinterpretation did specifically target the Blochs and observant Jews in the building.
Mezuzah photo by ratterrell
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"For me, the Jewish religion is like all other religions, an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people."
Q: Who said that?
A: Albert Einstein.
I recently read an article about Muslim doctors in England suing the hospital they work at because of so called discrimination. Their required garb was causing problems in surgery so they were asked to wear what every other doctor is wearing and not their traditional religious garb. They would rather put the life of a patient in danger because their religion calls for them to wear these clothes that cover every inch of their skin.
It's all ridiculous. Keep your personal beliefs personal.
Different strokes for different folks...believe in who or what you want on your own time...but stop asking for special treatment.
If this is what the job calls for, then it's what the job calls for.
Are all of the Rastafarians going to sue so they don't have to drug test for crying out loud?
Those English doctors remind me of all the Christian pharmacists here who refused to sell women oral contraceptives and the morning after pill.
@Ingrid: See Employment Division v. Smith (1990).
@Navin...That technically is allowed though under law. They are just required to give the prescription back so the person can have it filled elsewhere.
re: Employment Division v. Smith, Just for the record, I believe that if you want to smoke pot or eat peyote, that's fine as long as you're doing it on your own time.
Also, for the record, I believe that marijuana should be legal.
But I don't think that anyone should hide behind 'religion' to avoid following the rules of your job.
I mean, if you're working at a drug rehab facility and you're doing peyote then I still think that you have to follow the rules of the job even though I personally find nothing wrong with doing peyote.
If they felt that strongly about it, then they could have started their own rehab center based on their own personal beliefs.
Actually, if we outlawed religion, we could start a whole new world order with a totally clean slate. Legalize pot and make religion illegal!!!
Ingrid, perhaps their religion is the most important facet of their lives and comes first. Perhaps that clothing means much more to them than it does to you.
We each prescribe what matters most to us in this life.
Perhaps you should keep your personal beliefs personal.
Uhh, not to nitpick, but isn't the pictured mezuzah not kosher? Shouldn't it be tilting inward on the right door post... Unless the picture got flipped on the vertical axis...
lamgray,
If a doctor is wearing clothing that is interfering with surgery that they are doing on me or someone I love, I say keep your religion
at home.
Too many people use it to hide behind. I personally don't care what you believe in and this is an open forum where we can post our opinions. If we all kept our personal beliefs personal then forums like this would never exist.
Ingrid, I say, don't hire that doctor then. You place your loved ones first, they place your religion first. Perhaps they would say keep your loved ones at home. To each his own.
I just found it funny that you went on a rant saying that people should "keep personal beliefs personal" and went on a rant about your own personal beliefs in a public forum. So you can use an open forem or place to express what you feel is important, but they can't?
Ingrid, I say, don't hire that doctor then. You place your loved ones first, they place your religion first. Perhaps they would say keep your loved ones at home. To each his own.
Huh? In in emergency situation "Hiring" a doctor isn't like "Hiring" a secretary. Your ass is in the hospital and you hope that the doc doesn't have to adhere to some religious beliefs that cause him/her to do a diminished job.
That condo association has every right to regulate common areas, including the exteriors of doorways, in a non-discriminatory manner. And that is exactly what they did.
@Ingrid:
"[E]ven though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other there are strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind … a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist."
-Albert Einstein
To be fair, neither quote is more than a clever summary of what was a very deep and nuanced issue for Einstein. And neither quote has a damn thing to do with governmental interference with the free practice of religion.
It's a beard. Save the taxpayers hundreds of thousands in legal fees and leave it be.