Muslim fight attendant, Charee Stanley, says she was suspended from ExpressJet because she refuses to serve alcohol. Charee says that both consuming and serving alcohol is against her religion. Stanley began her career with ExpressJet three years ago, she converted to the Islamic faith about two years ago, and this year she learned of the strict Islamic rule regarding alcohol. Stanley says that she and her supervisor had a conversation about continuing her job and obeying the alcoholic rule, she says they came to an agreement that Stanley would just have to have someone else fulfill passengers requests for alcohol. Two months later, another flight attendant complained that Stanley was complicating the procedures on the plane, by not executing the duties of a flight attendant. ExpressJet responded with Stanley's suspension. Stanley retaliated by filing a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Lena Masri, an attorney with the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says, "We are requesting that her employment be reinstated and the accommodation of her religious beliefs be reinstated as well." ExpressJet spokesman dismissed the matter and refused to comment.
I think that Stanley and her supervisor should have made a written agreement that clearly stated what the compromise was and under what circumstances she could be fired/suspended. Without a written agreement no one can be sure that what the parties agreed to. Also, if ExpressJet has a clear duties for flight attendants, that require that a flight attendant must serve alcohol, I can understand why the decision to suspend Stanley was made. The unnamed flight attendant that vilified Stanley, could be said to be prejudice against Muslims. This kind of thing is seen throughout all of history, a specific group of people being treated less of because of their religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. World War II was because of Hitler's prejudice toward the Jews, the Ku Klux Klan glorifies the idea of white supremacy, and there are still countless organizations today that will speak out against non-heterosexual individuals.
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I agree that the comments made were inappropriate and islamophobic. Religious freedom and discrimination has and will always be something that people have to deal with, and all that leads to is conflict.
ReplyDelete-Lia Kerkman 6th
DeleteI'm excited that I can cross-apply this argument to that of the recent and widely known Kim Davis case, since both woman claim that they had the right to /not/ do their job because it was against their religion, and somehow expect to keep that job. Huffingpost gave me an excellent, logical example that works even better for this argument:
ReplyDelete"Imagine you worked at a restaurant, and you believed that God thought drinking alcohol was a sin. Now imagine that the restaurant's owners decided to start selling alcohol.... As an employee, you are NOT being forced to drink alcohol in violation of your religious liberty. And if you decide that having a job where you sell alcohol to others goes against your moral code, you are free to find another job, right? What you DON'T do is you don't go into work and refuse to sell people alcohol -- claiming "religious freedom" -- and expect to keep your job. The same is true if your job is issuing people marriage licenses."