The Department of Justice ("DOJ") recently filed a lawsuit against Berkeley School District 87, located in Cook County, Illinois, alleging it violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when it denied unpaid leave to a Muslim teacher for her to perform Hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. This Islamic pilgrimage is a religious duty that must be carried out at least once by every Muslim who is physically and financially able to do so.
The Muslim teacher, a non-tenured
computer math lab teacher, wrote a letter to the superintendant of
the school district requesting an unpaid leave of absence for
nearly three weeks in December 2008 to perform Hajj. The
superintendant denied the request, contending that the purpose of
the leave was not related to the teacher's professional
duties and was not requested for any of the specific purposes
listed in the collective bargaining agreement. The teacher
asked the board of education to reconsider her request; the board
reached the same conclusion and denied her request. Because
the teacher could not justify delaying performance of the Hajj, she
resigned from her position.
The teacher filed a charge of
discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
("EEOC"), and the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe
that the teacher's allegation of religious discrimination
was true. After the EEOC was unable to achieve a successful
resolution of the charge, the matter was referred to the DOJ.
On December 13, 2010, the DOJ
filed suit against the school district, alleging that it
discriminated against the Muslim teacher on the basis of her
religion in violation of Title VII, because the school district,
among other things, refused to provide the teacher with a
reasonable accommodation of her religious observance, practice, or
belief. In the complaint, the DOJ asks the court to order the
school district to adopt policies that reasonably accommodate its
employees' religious practices and beliefs, to reinstate the
teacher with back pay, and to pay the teacher compensatory
damages.
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