It “carries costs for air safety,” declares the headline of a USA Today editorial: “Payouts could chill crews from acting on reasonable suspicions.” Earlier here.
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Posts tagged as:
religious discrimination
- Is it against the law to report police movements on Twitter? [Valetk, Law.com; Volokh]
- “Attorney Charged With Posting Ad Seeking ‘Secretary With Benefits’” [Legal Profession Blog via Bruce Carton, Legal Blog Watch]
- Maker of Monster energy drinks drops its cease and desist demand against Vermonster beer [Burlington Free Press, earlier] More: Turkewitz.
- Putative class action filed against University of Illinois over clout-in-admissions scandal; a contest challenges readers to come up with best arguments for dismissal [Russell Jackson]
- Settlement in case where wrongful suspicion of shoplifting/counterfeiting led to $3.1 million verdict against Target [Greenville News via Turkewitz, earlier]
- Things you can’t bring on the school bus: softball bats, canned vegetables [Free Range Kids and again]
- “Veil-Wearing Muslim Woman Drops Battle With Judge” [OnPoint News]
- Great moments in voting rights law: no, you can’t have nonpartisan elections [Washington Times] (& Popehat)
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The clothing chain, famed for its hormone-saturated atmosphere, is being sued by the feds on behalf of a Muslim teenager whom it allegedly refused to hire because of her insistence on wearing a modest hijab headscarf, modesty being arguably incompatible with Abercrombie’s image. [EEOC press release via Ohio Employer's Law]
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From Wales: “A Jedi church leader is considering legal action after he was asked to leave a supermarket for wearing his hood.” [Ananova, Daily Post, Telegraph] Earlier on U.K. Jedi legal complications: SSFC guestposting last year (Woolworth’s won’t sell kids light sabers lest they be mistaken for weapons). More: Popehat.
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Religious discrimination is prohibited, the logic goes, and the views in the case at hand were intense enough to count as akin to religion. Critics are said to fear a “flood of litigation” on behalf of other workers whose strongly held beliefs bring them into conflict with co-workers or employers. [Guardian]
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…now suing the Mount Vernon, Ohio school district, claiming that he’s the target of religious discrimination. [Popehat, Mount Vernon News with complaint in PDF; coverage of the cross incident last year at Courthouse News; commentary critical of teacher at Panda's Thumb, supportive at WorldMag]
And now Deborah Smith of Poplar Bluff, Missouri has won a $45,000 settlement of her claim that library managers should have been more accommodating of her religious scruples about helping promote the popular Rowling wizard-themed books. The library had offered to let her remain behind the scenes during a special Potter event but said she did have to help. The ACLU represented her. [On Point News]
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Past differences on other issues aside, Jonathan Turley has a good column (in Sunday’s WaPo) on international trends toward restricting speech.
- Wisconsin lawyer pressing bill to allow punitive damages against home resellers over claimed defects [Wisconsin State Journal] More: Dad29.
- Longer than her will? NY Times posts ten-page jury questionnaire in Brooke Astor inheritance case ["City Room"] “Supreme Court: No Constitutional Right to Peremptory Challenge” [Anne Reed]
- Georgia’s sex offender law, like Illinois’s, covers persons who never committed a sex crime [Balko]
- “The lawsuits over TVA’s coal ash spill have come from all over Roane County – except the spots closest to home.” [Knoxville News]
- Bootleg soap: residents smuggle detergents after enactment of Spokane phosphate ban [AP/Yahoo]
- UK: Elderly Hindu man in religious-accommodation bid for approval of open-air funeral pyre [Telegraph]
- No DUI, no one hurt, but harsh consequences anyway when Connecticut 18 year old is caught buying six-pack of beer [Fountain]
- Only one or two not covered previously at this site ["12 Most Ridiculous Lawsuits", Oddee]
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Eugene Volokh notes a disturbing case arising from land-use conflicts in Walkersville, Maryland.
Con artists, lawyers, and people who deserve a punch in the face:
- The best stings, cons, and capers of 2008, as chosen by Wired. Particularly clever: the FBI’s reverse con of dozens of identity thieves. And who knew that phone phreaks still exist in the age of the internet?
- Rod Blagojevich’s attorney seeks to compel testimony from high officials in the incoming administration to resist impeachment, while Patrick Fitzgerald asks Illinois lawmakers to hold back to avoid jeopardizing his criminal case. Question: assuming Blagojevich is guilty, which is more important, that his impeachment proceed promptly, or that his criminal case proceed without political interference? Alternative question: Which is more important, good (or at least less corrupt) government in Illinois, or another notch on Fitzgerald’s belt? Final alternative question: if the Obama team was more involved than its own report suggests, why not let things drag out and get the whole story?
- A blog devoted to people who deserve a punch in the face (potentially offensive images, not-work-safe language). Special favorites: “B**** who talks on cellphone at Holocaust Museum” (yes, I have seen this), and “Passive aggressive emoticon user”;
- The heroism and defiance of the crew of the USS Pueblo, released from North Korean captivity a little over forty years ago today. If you click on a link anywhere in this post, make it this one (edit: bad link fixed);
- Contrary to suggestions from Esquire, Barack Obama is unlikely to end the war on some drugs;
- Is OSHA unconstitutional? Is seizing privately owned steel mills unconstitutional? Legal Theory calls this paper “very highly recommended” and I agree;
Should Jewish (and for that matter Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist) military chaplains be required to wear a cross? The Navy says yes. I say that if we’re going to bail out Chrysler we can afford a few pins which depict commandment tablets or crescentsSee below for a more interesting discussion from Ron Coleman and others, on something I completely misread;- The right to have children is fundamental, but we remove dogs from conditions that aren’t as overcrowded as those of the Duggar family of Arkansas;
- Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds: It’s not just the best book on economic bubbles and downturns ever written. It could be the title of this article on how a leading author on scientific skepticism was fleeced by Bernard Madoff. (Via Crime and Federalism);
- Speaking of delusions, more details on the methods through which attorney Marc Dreier allegedly stole millions emerge in this Bloomberg story.
Walter Olson will be back soon enough, but I’ll note that I have come to appreciate just how good a blogger he is, and how hard Walter works in keeping this site going over the past few days. Perhaps you might show him your appreciation? Vote early, and vote often.
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[walks up to blackboard]
I will NOT take at face value anything Bill O’Reilly says regarding the supposed “War on Christmas”.
[repeats 99x]
(my post at Secular Right just now; earlier).
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I expect to be blogging on that subject quite a bit at the new site I’ve helped launch, Secular Right. Today I’ve got a few thoughts up on the so-called Freedom of Choice Act and its potential impact on Catholic hospitals, so-called conscience laws entitling employees of clinics and drugstores to opt out of their job duties when asked to dispense contraceptives or assist in other reproductive services, the never-ending war over Christmas and tit-for-tat atheist displays, and more. (Dec. 7).
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Hasanali Khoja, a Muslim chef employed by London’s Metropolitan Police as a catering manager, has filed a discrimination claim after being asked to prepare breakfasts with pork sausages and bacon, saying he had been assured he would not have to handle the meat products. (David Barrett, “Muslim police chef claims religious discrimination over sausage and bacon breakfasts”, Telegraph, Nov. 2). The Minnesota meat-packing case discussed earlier is here.
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Minnesota: “In a landmark settlement that could change the way Muslims are treated in the workplace, St. Cloud-based Gold’n Plump Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers short prayer breaks and the right to refuse handling pork at its poultry processing facilities.” The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had sued Gold’n Plump Poultry, Inc., along with an employment agency that worked with it, charging religious discrimination and retaliation on behalf of the Muslim workers. The employment agency had required applicants to sign a form saying that they would not refuse to handle pork products if the occasion arose at work. (Chris Serres, “Somalis win prayer case at Gold’n Plump”, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Sept. 10). “The timing of the [paid] added [prayer] break will fluctuate during the year so as to coordinate with the religious timing for Muslim prayers.” The two companies between them also agreed to pay $365,000 as part of the settlement. (Sept. 10; EEOC news release; via Workplace Prof Blog).
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- “Mark Cuban Buys SEC, Dismisses All Charges Against Himself” [Dateline Hollywood h/t @SecuritiesD] #
- Ultra-close-up high-rez photos of spiders [Dark Roasted Blend] #
- Overlawyered was down much of Tuesday, looks like problem was with a WP tag plugin exhausting memory #
- New Bush regs: health providers must let religious employees pick and choose which care to assist with [Ronald Bailey, Reason "Hit and Run"] #
- On behalf of his NYC fan base, huzzah for lawprof Richard Epstein who’s moving from U. Chicago to NYU [NLJ] #
- Luggage that’s almost assured to draw scrutiny from TSA screeners in airport lines [Boing Boing via Happy Hospitalist] #
- Entire 50-year run of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts comic strip now online [Comics.com via Feral Child] #
- “Don’t close your blog’s comments” but read on, I cite some good reasons to close ‘em [Amy Derby] #
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The biggest growth area has been in EEOC claims on behalf of Muslim employees over alleged discrimination or lack of accommodation to religious practice, but Catholics and Protestants are filing more claims too. (Ohio Employment Law, Oct. 6).
Canada’s speech-tribunal censorship, writ large? “A coalition of Islamic states is using the United Nations to enact international ‘anti-defamation’ rules”. Among entities to protected from such “defaming”: religions.
Susan Bunn Livingstone, a former U.S. State Department official who specialized in human rights issues and also spoke to the July 18 congressional gathering, said the developments at the UN are worrisome. “They are trying to internationalize the concept of blasphemy,” said Livingstone at the panel. She contrasted “the concept of injuring feelings versus what is actually happening on the ground — torture, imprisonment, abuse.” And, she added, “They are using this discourse of ‘defamation’ to carve out any attention we would bring to a country. Abstractions like states and ideologies and religions are seen as more important than individuals. This is a moral failure.”
The fact that the resolutions keep passing, and that UN officials now monitor countries’ compliance, could help the concept of “defamation of religions” become an international legal norm, said Livingstone, noting that when the International Court of Justice at The Hague decides what rises to the level of an “international customary law,” it looks not to unanimity among countries but to “general adherence.” “That’s why these UN resolutions are so troubling,” she said. “They’ve been passed for 10 years.”
(Luisa Ch. Savage, Maclean’s, Jul. 23, via Rick Sincere). More from the author at her Maclean’s blog, with hundreds of reader comments, and from Somin @ Volokh.
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