Jury Awards $5.12 M In Employment Discrimination Suit Against AT&T

AP reports that last Thursday, a state trial court jury in Kansas City, Missouri awarded a Muslim woman $120,000 in lost wages and other actual damages, and punitive damages of $5 million, against AT&T in the largest employment discrimination award in Missouri history.  Susan Bashir, who worked as a fiber optics network builder for ten years converted to Islam in 2005. She was harassed constantly about her religion, and in 2008 her boss pulled off her headscarf and exposed her hair in an encounter over the fact that she had filed an employment discrimination complaint with the EEOC. She became so stressed that she could not return to work, and she was fired after being off the job for nine months.