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Columbia Facing $250K Fine After Muslim Employees Criticized for Too Many Breaks

Columbia Facing $250K Fine After Muslim Employees Criticized for Too Many Breaks

“allegedly gave “similar accommodations” for employees of other faiths”

The fact that Muslims pray five times a day was apparently a factor here.

The College Fix reports:

Columbia faces $250,000 fine for telling Muslim employees not to take so many breaks

When Columbia University’s internal investigation of its chaplain for religious discrimination came up empty, an ex-employee went to the government.

Now the Ivy League institution is facing fines up to $250,000 from New York City’s Commission on Human Rights and “could be ordered to reform its internal policies on religious accommodations,” the Columbia Daily Spectator reports.

A former Muslim employee accused University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis, a Christian who has led the office for two decades, of not letting the employee work earlier shifts during Ramadan and punishing the employee for taking five breaks a day to pray in keeping with Muslim practice.

Davis allegedly gave “similar accommodations” for employees of other faiths. Her office employs six advisers for Christians, three for Jews and one each for Buddhism and “ethical humanism.”

A Muslim adviser to be funded by an anonymous donor was announced this spring after years of complaints from Muslim students, the Daily reported then.

Davis allegedly told the employee no one else “takes so many breaks,” a conversation verified by “two other current and former members” of Davis’s staff to the Daily.

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Comments

Give them the same number of breaks as the other employees take. If it isn’t enough, then they have to put in extra time before//after work to make up for the time lost during prayer rituals. Why should we pay people to pray during work hours?

    Milhouse in reply to herm2416. | August 11, 2017 at 6:05 pm

    Nobody expects you to. And workers who need such breaks are more than willing to make up the time. The issue is refusing them this reasonable accommodation, and insisting that they work the exact hours specified, without having a good reason why that is necessary. The law is clear that employers must accommodate their workers’ religious needs unless it imposes a significant hardship on them, and the burden is on the employer to demonstrate that hardship and show why it was unreasonable to get around it.

    Oh, and Moslems praying five times a day shouldn’t be an issue with a normal job because the first and last prayers would be long before and after the work day. That leaves at most three during the work day, and two of them can be combined.

    The big issue, as noted in the article, is not letting workers take their meal break at sunset during Ramadan. They don’t need the break at lunchtime when they’re fasting, and they do need it when the fast ends and they’re starving. Unless the employer has a very good reason why he can’t shift their work time around to accommodate them, he’s being a d*ck, and also breaking the law.

It’s all Trump’s fault because Mexicans are hard workers and don’t require all that praying.

Another reason why “certain” cultures are not compatible with the American way.

Know what Muslims are praying everyday: that they should reject you the kafir and your ways (culture) and that you the kafir are deserving of h e ll. Hear a translation before becoming sympathetic to their praying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnIsL1nWwr0