An Arab Muslim woman who sued the prominent law firm Foley & Lardner for revoking its job offer over her anti-Israel activism just had part of her case dismissed by an Illinois federal court.
Georgetown Law School grad Jinan Chehade claims the firm’s director of diversity and inclusion promised her they “valued and supported” her Arab Muslim heritage—a promise she says she relied on when she accepted a job there.
But U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman, an Obama appointee, ruled that those assurances didn’t amount to an “unambiguous promise” that her job offer would not be rescinded over her pro-Palestinian activism.
Chehade had worked as a summer clerk at Foley in 2023 and was to begin as a full-time associate at the firm’s Chicago office in late October. In the interim, and following the October 7th attacks on Israel, she began speaking out against the Jewish state on her social media accounts and at an October 11th Chicago City Hall meeting.
Chehade appeared at the meeting wrapped in a keffiyeh to oppose a resolution condemning the Hamas massacre. Though “the Western Zionist-controlled media machine would have you believe” it was an unprovoked attack, she raged, Hamas’s murderous rampage was justified: it was their “legal right” and a “natural response” to “75 years of occupation” by Israel’s “apartheid regime”:
[Full audio of the Chicago City Hall meeting is available here.]
After that rant, Foley apparently thought better of its offer. Ten days later, Chehade claims she was called to its Chicago office, where members of the firm grilled her about her remarks at the meeting, as well her social media posts about the Gaza conflict and her past involvement with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). SJP is the pro-Palestinian student group behind the unauthorized anti-Israel protests and encampments that disrupted daily life on the country’s college campuses over the past year.
Shortly after her meeting with the firm—and the day before she was to start her new job—Foley withdrew its offer.
Chehade sued the law firm this past spring, alleging promissory estoppel: she claimed the diversity and inclusion director’s statements were an “unambiguous promise” that she would not be punished for actions that she took as an Arab Muslim woman in support of her beliefs.
Judge Coleman disagreed. The firm had not promised Chehade “total job protection no matter what she did or said so long as she believed those actions were related to her ethnicity, religion, or association.” To conclude otherwise, the judge wrote, would be like giving Chehade a “get out of jail free card” for any action that she took, even if it violated Foley’s values and policies, due to her status as an Arab Muslim woman.
Speaking of going to jail, the judge may have had in mind Chehade’s arrest for her role in the Chicago O’Hare anti-Israel airport blockade earlier this year. A recent lawsuit alleges that Chehade was a primary organizer of the event and used her own body to help stop the flow of traffic around the airport. She’s a named defendant in that case, which we covered here, brought by the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute on behalf of frustrated motorists stuck in their cars that day.
Chehade was given three weeks to amend her filing, which also alleges discrimination under state and federal law—claims the court did not address in last week’s ruling.
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