Community Corner

Ellicott City Business Pays in Religious Discrimination Suit

An applicant said she was not hired after refusing to remove her hijab for work.

An Ellicott City assisted living center will pay $25,000 to settle a religious discrimination lawsuit after the facility denied a job to a Muslim woman who refused to remove her headscarf.

of Ellicott City will also redouble its committment to religious freedom, according to the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. 

Morningside House officials were not available for comment Tuesday morning.

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In its suit, filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, the EEOC charged that a director at Morningside Health asked Khadijah Salim  during an interview if she would remove her hijab -- a headscarf worn by some Muslim women – because it might interfere with her job duties as a nurse.

According to a statement released by the EEOC, Salim said she had worn the hijab as a student and a professional and that it had never interfered with her work. Salim was not one of the ten nurses hired by Morningside in September 2010. 

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The EEOC unsuccessfully tried to reach a settlement, according to the statement, then , which obliges employers to “accommodate an employee’s or applicant’s sincerely held religious beliefs unless it creates an undue hardship.”

“In this case, there was no undue  hardship to the employer -- just an apparent overreaction to a reasonable  request because of myths and stereotypes about a religion,” EEOC Regional Attorney Debra M. Lawrence said in the EEOC statement.

The judgment also requires Morningside supervisors, managers and hiring staff to attend religious discrimination training; to post notice maintaining that the company is committed to maintaining an environment free of religious discrimination; and to submit complaints about religious discrimination to the EEOC for two years. 

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