Muslim Immigrants Cautious to Complain of Bias

April 30, 2005

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/30/nyregion/30cases.html?ex=1115956800&en=6a6f83120ef6533f&ei=5070

On April 30, 2005 The New York Times reported, "discrimination cases involving Muslims in the workplace, at school and in airports increased markedly after Sept. 11 but are most commonly brought by American-born Muslims because immigrants are reluctant to take legal action, lawyers and civil rights advocates say. A fear of retaliation by employers or more extreme outcomes, like deportation, drives many Muslim immigrants to stay quiet... The cases, some of which have been settled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, cover a spectrum of harassment and discrimination claims. Children have been barred from boarding airplanes because their names resembled those on a terrorist watch list; longtime female employees were suddenly told, after 9/11, to remove their hijabs."