A Muslim woman who worked for a McDonald’s franchisee in Maryland claims that managers and colleagues sexually harassed her and subjected her to religious discrimination after converting to Islam.
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) – A Muslim woman who worked for a McDonald’s franchisee in Maryland claims that managers and employees sexually harassed her and subjected her to religious discrimination after converting to Islam.
Diamond Powell, 28, of Baltimore, on Thursday sued her former employer, Susdewitt Management LLC of Lanham, Maryland, with the support of attorneys from the Council for American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group.
The graduate of Morgan State University was Christian in 2016 when she started working for the company, which operates two McDonald’s locations at Baltimore / Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. Powell converted to Islam in February 2017 and began wearing a hijab, a religious head covering.
One manager told her to take ‘her hoodie’ off her head, while another manager told her, ‘You do not have to wait for God to wake you up to pray,’ Powell’s federal lawsuit claims.
Powell has a religious belief that they should pray five times a day at prescribed times. A general manager initially granted Powell’s request to make short prayers during her shifts, according to her lawsuit.
“Their prayer breaks lasted no longer than a typical bathroom break,” the suit says.
But the general manager forbade Powell to pray in a quiet place at the airport and instead told her to pray in a dirty storage room, the lawsuit claims. After Powell continued to pray outside the restaurant, the general manager withdrew her request to take a prayer request, saying, “God will understand,” according to the lawsuit.
“In doing so, General Manager Powell was forced to choose between continuing her work at McDonald’s or sacrificing her sincere religious beliefs,” the suit says.
Powell resigned from the job in April 2018. Her claim accuses Susdewitt Management of violating the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Susdewitt Management owner Isaac Green disputed the “characterizations” of the lawsuit, but said the company controls Powell’s allegations and will “respond accordingly.”
“We are proud of our diversity of workforce, and we have policies in place to provide a hospitable workplace and respect the accommodations that workers need for religious reasons,” Green said in a statement issued by a McDonald’s spokeswoman.
The suit also alleges Powell was sexually harassed at work, with several managers and employees asking her if she was a girl and a shift manager making sexually explicit remarks.
“No Muslim woman should ever, ever experience what I went through, and I hope this lawsuit will help other Muslim women,” Powell said Thursday during an online news conference with her lawyers.
Zainab Chaudry, director of CAIR’s Maryland office, said the group has seen an uptick in the number of incidents in which Muslims have experienced hostile work environments because of their faith.
“Unfortunately, this disturbing case is a stark reminder of the challenges that Muslim workers often face in the workplace,” she said.
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