A jury in Jackson County Circuit Court on Thursday ordered ATT to pay $120,000 in actual damages and $5 million in punitive damages for discrimination against Susann Bashir, a Kansas City woman who converted from Christianity to Islam.
Susann, 41, had sued ATT unit Southwestern Bell for a pattern of offensive and discriminatory conduct by supervisors following her conversion to Islam in 2005.
She has been a network technician in the company for six years.
Bashir said in court documents that her work environment became hostile immediately after she converted, with her co-workers making harassing comments about her religion.
She said that when she started wearing a head scarf, her colleagues and manager started calling her names like “terrorist” and told her that she would be going to hell.
“I was shocked. I thought, what is going on? Nobody ever cared what I wore before. Nobody ever cared what religion I was before,” she said.
Islamophobia and discrimination cases against Muslims have been increased in the United States over the past 11 years.
MSH/JR
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