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Justice Department sues on behalf of Muslim teacher, triggering debate
By Jerry Markon, Tuesday, March 22, 5:42 PM

BERKELEY, Ill. � Safoorah Khan had taught middle school math for only nine months in this tiny Chicago suburb when she made an unusual request. She wanted three weeks off for a pilgrimage to Mecca.


The school district, faced with losing its only math lab instructor during the critical end-of-semester marking period, said no. Khan, a devout Muslim, resigned and made the trip anyway.

Justice Department lawyers examined the same set of facts and reached a different conclusion: that the school district�s decision amounted to outright discrimination against Khan. They filed an unusual lawsuit, accusing the district of violating her civil rights by forcing her to choose between her job and her faith.

As the case moves forward in federal court in Chicago, it has triggered debate over whether the Justice Department was following a purely legal path or whether suing on Khan�s behalf was part of a broader Obama administration campaign to reach out to Muslims.

The decision to take on a small-town school board has drawn criticism from conservatives and Berkeley officials, who say the government should not be standing behind a teacher who wanted to leave her students.

The lawsuit, filed in December, may well test the boundaries of how far employers must go to accommodate workers� religious practices � a key issue as the nation grows more multicultural and the Muslim population increases. But it is also raising legal questions. Experts say the government might have difficulty prevailing because the 19-day leave Khan requested goes beyond what courts have considered.

�It sounds like a very dubious judgment and a real legal reach,� said Michael B. Mukasey, who was attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. �The upper reaches of the Justice Department should be calling people to account for this.�

His successors in the Obama administration counter that they are upholding a sacred principle: the right of every American to be free of religious bias in the workplace. �This was a profoundly personal request by a person of faith,� said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, who compared the case to protecting �the religious liberty that our forefathers came to this country for.�

The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to maintain good relations with Muslims � while endorsing tough anti-terrorism tactics. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has called protecting the civil rights of Muslims a �top priority,� and his department has filed other legal actions on behalf of Muslims, including a corrections officer in New Jersey not allowed to wear a head scarf at work.

Perez denied any political motive in the Berkeley lawsuit, saying it was pursued in part to fight �a real head wind of intolerance against Muslim communities.� People in the rapidly growing Muslim community in Chicago�s western suburbs praised the Justice Department�s involvement.

�It rings the bell of justice that they will fight for a Muslim wanting to perform a religious act,� said Shaykh Abdool Rahman Khan, resident scholar at the Islamic Foundation mosque near Berkeley. �That certainly can win the hearts of many people in the Muslim world.�

Although the Justice Department, including during the Bush administration, and private plaintiffs have filed civil rights lawsuits on religious grounds, they have tended to be over issues such as whether employees can take off on the Sabbath or wear religious head coverings.

Cases involving the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, or hajj, are exceedingly rare, said Christina Abraham, civil rights director for the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

19-day request

Khan arrived in November 2007 at Berkeley�s MacArthur Middle School, a faded brown brick building across from the public works department. She supplemented the math curriculum for sixth through eighth grades and helped prepare students for state tests.

Berkeley is a virtual speck on the map, a blue-collar village of about 5,000 people, rail yards, strip malls and ranch-style homes. The community, about 15 miles west of Chicago, is majority African American and Hispanic, and about 75 percent of its voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama.

The support for Obama�s Justice Department is much more mixed. Government lawyers, said longtime village President Michael A. Esposito, are �targeting a small community.�

�The school district just wanted a teacher in the room for those three weeks. They didn�t care if she was a Martian, a Muslim or a Catholic,� said Esposito, a political independent. �How come we bow down to certain religious groups? Why don�t we go out of our way for the Baptists or the Jehovah�s Witnesses?�

Khan, 29, who grew up in North Carolina and Arkansas, was happy in the job, said her lawyer, Kamran A. Memon. But she longed to make the hajj, one of the five pillars of the Islamic faith, which Muslims are obligated to do once. It would not have fallen on her summer break for about nine years.

�This was the first year she was financially able to do it,� Memon said. �It�s her religious belief that a Muslim must go for hajj quickly . . . that it�s a sin to delay.� Khan declined to comment.

In August 2008, Khan requested an unpaid leave for the first three weeks of December that year. The district said the leave was unrelated to Khan�s job and not authorized by the teacher union contract, according to court documents. Khan resigned in a letter to the school board.

�They put her in a position where she had to choose,� Memon said. �Berkeley has qualified subs. She didn�t feel her absence would cause any problem at all.�

Ah but where is the seperation of church and State?

hussein and eric holder are KILLING AMERICA

She resign didn't she . If a good teacher she can reply like anybody else that don't have a job. She left in the middle of a school year.This goverment has to many people that set on thier brain with nothing to do and start crap .The justice department this is a joke get rit of them all to many judge with no common sence

And it is not really a slow death: they quicken the pace.

Well, what can one say? Obama and his troupe are consistently moving to destroy America. They despise America. What more proof do those who voted for this destroyer need to change their disfunctional minds?

They didn't *fire* her; it says she resigned.

This is a load of bull.

It should be obvious to all that the fed govt. isn't on the side of the people.

Reading about our govt's actions gives me the feeling that I've moved to a foreign land ruled by the insane, only thing is I still live in the same place. Kind of like a Twilight Zone episode.

Sure. Why not. Muslim "wronged" unlease the DOJ.

Whitey tries to vote and non-caucasians cause problems, not inclined to do anything.

Holder is a racist pig.

D'o� viens-tu?

ROGER THAT Sam.

Do they have to let her out of class to pray 5 times a day? If this goes through do people like myself who as on call 24/7 get sundays off to go to church each sunday? This is [bleep] nonsense.

For it to be discrimination, wouldn't they have to show she had been treat differently to other teachers?

If say an RC teacher had been given three weeks off to visit Lourdes, then there might, just might, be a case. However what Khan wants is actually special treatment because her religion...

Plenty of employers out there that make their Christian employees work on Sunday , is the DOJ gonna go to bat for those employees ?

I didn't think so.

Work or walk


Mike

They try to appese the people who are killing the country while pushing the rest os us farther into the corner.