Charee Stanley is a flight attendant who was suspended from her job with ExpressJet, an Atlanta, Georgia based flight carrier. Stanley says she was suspended because she refused to serve alcohol due to her Muslim religious beliefs.
The story however, is a bit more complicated.
Stanley had been with ExpressJet for 3 years. Stanley converted to Islam a year after she started the job. Between the time she converted and early June, Stanley had in fact served alcoholic beverages working as a flight attendant. In early June she says that her religion’s position on alcohol had be clarified for her, and that she needed to stop serving alcohol in order to be in compliance with her faith.
Stanley says that she met with her manager and discussed the issue in June. Her supervisor advised her to make arrangements with her other co-workers in order to accommodate her religious beliefs.
Stanley claims that at first the main co-worker agreed to accommodate her request and that things worked perfectly. However, on August 2, her co-worker protested the exemption in a complaint. The complaint also noted that Stanley had a book with “foreign writings” and that she wore a “headdress”. Many people refer to Muslim women’s Hijab, which is basically a garment that covers a Muslim women’s head and neck, as a “headdress”.
Stanley’s leading attorney, Lena Masri calls the complaint “Islamophobic.” Expressjet revoked Stanley’s accommodation and she was placed on unpaid leave. There is a possibility that she could be terminated by the airline.
Stanley has since filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Stanley accuses ExpressJet of discrimination.
Many people have drawn comparisons between Stanley’s case and the case of Kim Davis. Davis is the Kentucky clerk who was freed from jail this week after being charged with contempt of court, due to her refusal to sign marriage licenses for same sex couples after the supreme court ruling. Davis claimed that issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples went against her Christian beliefs.
Masri claims that her clients case is very different from Davis’s case. She points out that Stanley is not a government employee and did not deny service to any customers, because other attendants agreed to serve alcoholic drinks. Masri claims her client was placed on leave for essentially doing what she was told she could do.
Masri also argues that by initially providing Stanley with an exemption, ExpressJet basically acknowledged that serving alcohol was not an “essential duty” that Stanley needed to fulfill in order to comply with the terms of her employment. Davis on the other hand was the only county clerk who could issue marriage licenses in her area.
Law Professor Eugene Volokh says that the “you don’t like the job requirements, so quit the job” argument on the wrong side of the law. He explains, that logic isn’t accepted by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Title requires that employers accommodate their workers religious beliefs, as long as them doing so does not impose “undue hardship” on the business.
Masri has stated that if within six months the EEOC does not rule in her client’s favor they will consider filing a federal lawsuit.
Personally, I think Stanley should find another job, ultimately it’s unfair to her co-workers and the company. Especially if she happens to be the only attendant on a flight. Or, what if the other co-worker happens to convert to Islam as well? There is a slippery slope in both the Davis and Stanley cases, that we should not go down. Liberals should be very careful when throwing support behind other religious beliefs, especially when they insist on the same “accommodations” that right wing Christians ask for. Whether it’s alienating co-workers, customers, or voters, religion should not dictate how a business is run or allow a public servant to ignore their oath to uphold the law.
Here’s a video of Stanley being “interviewed” on The View.
