Seattle, USA - A Muslim immigrant working on contract for Microsoft filed a complaint against the company last month, saying he was interrogated about his Muslim-inspired, anti-war Web site, then abruptly fired.
Two former Kentridge High School students, whose Bible club was denied a charter at the school in part because it required members to swear allegiance to Jesus Christ, are awaiting a federal-court decision in their lawsuit.
And 14 months ago, the Red Robin restaurant chain settled with a server it had fired from its Bellevue restaurant for refusing to cover up wrist tattoos he said are part of his ancient Egyptian Kemetic faith.
Here and elsewhere across the country, complaints alleging religious discrimination are up dramatically, with confrontations arising over how people publicly observe their faith, when and where they pray, how they dress, what hours they work — and generally what they believe.
Between 2002 and 2006, the number of religious-discrimination complaints filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) nationally rose more than 30 percent from the previous five years.
For Washington state, complaints rose 60 percent for the same period. In fact, religious complaints in the state for 2006 were the highest they've been in at least 15 years.
What the law says
The Civil Rights Act of l964 prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals because of their religion in hiring, firing and other terms of employment. It applies to employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations, as well as to the federal government.
"We're seeing an increase in religious charges involving all different faiths — across the board," said Kathryn Olson, supervisory trial attorney with the EEOC in Seattle.
Among the factors fueling the tensions are fallout from the war on terror, the growing convergence of politics and religion and an increasingly diverse population.
"I tell my [employer] clients all the time: Nothing will spread more quickly in the workplace than religious harassment," said Rick Liebman, an employment attorney in Portland.
"Where a person may not even think about making a joke about a co-worker's race or sex, they seem to have no compunction to picking on other people over their religion."
Not surprisingly, a majority of the complaints have come from Muslims. But the numbers also reflect growing tensions around the Christian faith.
Flora Wilson Bridges, an associate professor at Seattle University, said she believes those tensions are arising in part because conservative Christians have become more provocative — less tolerant of those with whom they disagree and more determined to impose their values on others. As they have become more emboldened, they've also become more inclined to take their battles to court.
"Second-class citizens"
Helping them do that are groups like the Alliance Defense Fund, which mounts legal battles on behalf of Christians nationwide. It argues that people of faith should not have to leave their religious beliefs at home.
"Christians are being treated as second-class citizens in schools, city council and on the streets," said Greg Scott, a spokesman for the group.
Its lawyers represent the former Kentridge students who sued the school three years ago after their Truth Bible Club was denied a charter. Club organizers had been asked to remove the word "truth" from the club's name and give up the Christians-only criterion for membership — and refused.
Religious disputes can arise over anything from working on the Sabbath to the use of a company lunch room for prayer meetings.
Last year, a man complained to the city of Seattle's Office of Civil Rights after he said he was kicked out of a blood bank for talking about religion there; the blood bank said he was being loud and obnoxious.
In another case filed with the city, a resident of a Catholic housing complex said he was told to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary from a common area of the complex by a manager who had a Buddha statue in the same area. Both were ordered to take them down as part of a settlement.
The Rev. Joe Fuiten, pastor of Cedar Park Assembly of God, said concerns have arisen within his church, coming from a teacher who couldn't keep a Bible on her desk and a child told by a teacher that he was not allowed to say "Merry Christmas."
"Separation of church and state has suddenly become separation of church and public life," Fuiten said.
Federal, state and local law prohibit discrimination based on religion and other characteristics like race and sex.
Additionally, governmental bodies — from school districts to Uncle Sam — are obligated to respect such constitutional rights as free speech and expression. That means a government employee has broader rights than someone employed in the private sector.
"There's this joke labor attorneys share ... that when you go into the private sector, you check your constitutional rights at the door," said Joseph Marra, a Seattle labor attorney.
Khaled Mohamed hadn't given such issues much thought when he took a contracting job at Microsoft last year.
A week before his contract was to expire, the 39-year-old was questioned about an anti-war Web site he maintains and how often he accessed it and other Web sites while at work.
He was subsequently escorted from the premises, he said, and told he'd never do work for Microsoft again. An immigrant from Egypt, he filed a religious and national-origin discrimination complaint with the EEOC against Excell Data, his direct employer, and against Microsoft.
Microsoft declined to comment on his case, but within days of his complaint made him eligible for rehire. Excell said Mohamed's contract was terminated because he violated Microsoft policy against using company resources for personal reasons.
Mohamed said in his six months at Microsoft, he'd only twice accessed his own site, waronislam.net, which harshly criticizes the U.S. presence in the Middle East. The site characterizes the war on terror as a war against Islam and features graphic photos of the dead. "I think they believed my views were too extremist... ," he said.
In another case, the EEOC sued Ellensburg restaurant Starlight Lounge last year on behalf of Angela Harper, a black Muslim woman who wore a hijab, the traditional Muslim head scarf. She said she was denied a promotion to lounge server because, she was told, she didn't fit the "hot white girl" image the restaurant sought for those jobs.
Restaurant owner Doris Morgan said she never made the comment and never would. The lawsuit blindsided her, she said, because she'd hired Harper, nurtured her and "was good to her."
"If something like this can happen to someone who's open and embracing of differences," she said, "what will it do to those [employers] who are not?"
Clear policies needed
Labor lawyers and human-resource experts say employers should establish clear policies and an atmosphere that does not tolerate harassment.
And they are required to accommodate, within reasonable limits, the "bona fide" religious beliefs and practices of employees.
"I tell employers to go the furthest step that a reasonable person would ask you to go and then go one step further — and you'll win," said Liebman, the employment attorney in Portland.
Determining what's bona fide can get tricky.
In 2005, the EEOC settled a case against Red Robin on behalf of server Ameni Rangel, who said he was fired after refusing to cover a religious inscription tattooed on his wrists. Workplace policies at Red Robin forbid tattoos.
Less than a quarter-inch wide, the inscription was a verse from an Egyptian scripture and part of the 28-year-old Rangel's Kemetic religion; to intentionally conceal it would be a sin, he said.
Rangel said managers knew about the tattoos when they hired him, but that after the restaurant moved to a new Bellevue location, a new manager told Rangel he'd have to cover them because tattoos didn't fit the company's image.
"They made fun of what I believed," Rangel said. "They would say things like the Tasmanian Devil is my religion. They thought I was just silly."
The restaurant declined to comment.
It paid Rangel $150,000 to settle the case and agreed to train managers so they better understand religious discrimination.