A Muslim flight attendant has sued ExpressJet, accusing the airline of wrongly suspending her because she refused to serve alcohol to passengers.
Advertisement
“It was at the direction of the airlines that she began coordinating with the other flight attendant on duty so that when a passenger requested alcohol, the other flight attendant would accommodate that request”.
The recent lawsuit is the continuation of a legal case that began a year ago, when the Council filed a complaint with the EEOC on the flight attendant’s behalf.
CNN reports that Stanley worked out an arrangement with her boss on June 1, 2015, where a colleague would serve passengers alcohol in Stanley’s place when she was on duty. The lawsuit claims that the airline revoked reasonable accommodations that they had provided for Charee Stanley’s religious beliefs and wrongfully suspended her from employment. She was placed on unpaid leave last summer.
“So it obviously was not causing undue hardship because there were two flight attendants and it was moving along smoothly until another flight attendant decided that they had an issue with Ms Stanley not serving alcohol”.
Walid said there were also complaints that she wore a hijab and read books in foreign languages, which he described as proof of “Islamophobia”.
The court case follows Ms Stanley’s complaint filed past year with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After conducting an investigation, the EEOC’s findings were inconclusive, but the agency did say that the flight attendant has the right to sue.
Stanley now seeks to recover “unspecified compensatory and punitive damages” from ExpressJet.
Advertisement
Stanley had been an employee at ExpressJet for three years when she was suspended last summer. We are an equal opportunity employer with a long history of diversity in our workforce.
