A Muslim woman is suing a staffing agency and Michigan employer over claims her religious head covering led to a demotion, then termination, from a plant on the state’s west side.
According to the federal lawsuit filed this week by the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan and Ohio offices, Aaminah Ussabur said she faced complaints about her hijab, or headscarf, immediately after starting work in August as a pressure packager at an Amway manufacturing/shipping facility in Ada.
On her second day, a supervisor told Ussabur people were “complaining about your headscarf.” She also asserts in the suit that he told her the handbook didn’t allow the head covering and it sparked safety concerns.
Ussabur told the supervisor she would not remove her hijab since it was “a part of her religious obligation,” according to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids. She also said to him “that if there were safety issues, she was willing to tuck in her hijab underneath her shirt.” [The Detroit News] Read more
