Here is a roundup of recent developments in cases involving religious discrimination in employment:
The EEOC announced on April 4 that it has sued Bo-Cherry, Inc., a North Carolina corporation that operates several Bojangles' restaurants, charging failure to accommodate a Muslim job applicant's religious exercise, by requiring him to shave his beard rather than using a beard net.
In New York last week, a Muslim employee of the New York City Transit Authority who had worked for over ten years as a car cleaner filed a federal court lawsuit claiming that when he transferred to a different depot, he faced a campaign of hostility toward his religion and failure to accommodate his religious observances. Gothamist reports on the lawsuit. The complaint (full text) in Ahmed v. New York City Transit Authority, (ED NY, filed 4/3/2013) details interference with plaintiff's ability to attend Friday Jummah services, as well as other observances.
In Price v. Warrensville Heights City Schools, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45552 (ND OH, March 29, 2013), an Ohio federal district court rejected a claim by a para-professional that the Warrensville Heights schools used insubordination charges as a pretext for terminating her, when their real reason was her refusal to join the principal's church and defendants belief that plaintiff's lesbian sexual orientation equated with her Pentecostal religious beliefs. The magistrate's decision in the case is at 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187333 (ND OH, May 3, 2012).
