At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks.
Such complaints were increasing even before frictions erupted over the planned Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, with Muslim workers filing a record 803 such claims in the year ended Sept. 30, 2009. That was up 20 percent from the previous year and up nearly 60 percent from 2005, according to federal data.
The number of complaints filed since then will not be announced until January, but Islamic groups say they have received a surge in complaints recently, suggesting that 2010’s figure will set another record.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found enough merit in some of the complaints that it has filed several prominent lawsuits on behalf of Muslim workers.
Is this a backlash? You bet it is!
Barring head scarves and prayer breaks is not discriminatory as long as it is applied to everybody.
Calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” is no more discriminatory than calling somebody “capitalist” or calling a British soldier “Tommy”.
The question of prayer breaks may be bogus, depending upon the actual circumstances of the complaints. Business cannot stop functioning at the specific time the Muslim “should” pray. This time varies daily by a few minutes. In practice even in majority-Muslim countries employees do their prayers at the same time every day at a regularly-scheduled break. They will even, in a pinch, skip prayers and make up that prayer cycle later in the day when they are free.
In some cases head scarves are dangerous on the job.
So…can Christians pray the Hours at work under the protection of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? Will they file lawsuits on our behalf?