School District Pays Heavy Price to Settle Religious Accommodation Lawsuit

On October 13, 2011, the Department of Justice announced that it had entered a consent decree with the Board of Education of Berkeley School District No. 87 that will settle a Title VII religious accommodations lawsuit brought by the DOJ on behalf of a Muslim teacher.  Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of gender, race, color, national origin or religion.  An employer must make reasonable accommodations for religious beliefs, observances or practices unless doing so would cause an undue hardship on the employer.  When an employee requests an accommodation for his or her religious practices, the employer must meet and confer with the employee to find an accommodation that fits the employee's needs while avoiding undue hardship on the employer.

The lawsuit arose after the teacher, Safoorah Khan, requested 19 days of unpaid leave to perform a Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca required by her religion, Islam, for Muslims physically and financially capable of making the trip.  When the district refused her request, Khan resigned and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which then referred the case to the DOJ under a new pilot program.  According to the DOJ's complaint, the district denied Khan a reasonable accommodation of her religious practice by refusing to grant her leave without engaging in an interactive process to find a way to accommodate her request.  The DOJ argued that the school district's actions forced Khan to choose between her religious beliefs and her job.

Although the merits of the case were widely debated, the school district decided to settle rather than litigate the well-publicized, politically-charged case in court.  Under the terms of the consent decree, the school district will pay $75,000 to Khan for lost back pay, compensatory damages and attorneys' fees. The district must also develop a religious accommodation policy consistent with Title VII's requirement to reasonably accommodate employees' religious beliefs.   Finally, the district must provide mandatory training on religious accommodation to all board members, supervisors, managers, administrators and human resources officials who participate in decisions on religious accommodation requests made by its employees and prospective employees.  

The lawsuit and costly settlement probably could have been avoided had the school district made an effort to negotiate with Khan to find a way to meet her request.  However, by denying Khan's request without making any attempt to accommodate her, the district opened itself up to a religious discrimination lawsuit.