Feds Get Muslim Truckers $240k after Getting Fired for Refusing to Transport Alcohol

The Obama administration helped two Muslim truck drivers working for an American company in the U.S. get a nice settlement after being fired for refusing to transport alcohol because it violates their religious beliefs.

It’s another one of those shameful only-in-America stories. It also marks the second time in two years that an Obama-appointed federal judge rules in favor of Muslims crying discrimination in the American workplace. In 2013 a freshly appointed federal judge in Northern California handed the administration a major victory, ruling that a Muslim woman’s civil rights were violated by an American clothing retailer that didn’t allow her to wear a head scarf as required by her religion. The lawsuit was filed on the woman’s behalf by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws.

The EEOC, which has made it a mission to go after businesses that don’t accommodate Muslims in the workplace, also sued on behalf of the two truck drivers. The unbelievable case comes out of Peoria, Illinois, a community of around 113,000 located 166 miles from Chicago. The Somalian Muslims, Mahad Abass Mohamed and Abdkiarim Hassan Bulsha, worked for a trucking company called Star Transport based in Morton, Illinois. In its lawsuit the EEOC accused Star Transport of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the bases of religion. The EEOC’s district director said that the agency took legal action after an investigation revealed that the trucking company “could have readily avoided assigning these employees to alcohol delivery without any undue hardship, but chose to force the issue despite the employees’ Islamic religion.”

The chief judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Obama appointee James E. Shadid, agreed and ruled in favor of the Muslim men. Based on that ruling, a jury subsequently awarded the derelict Muslim truckers $240,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. This month the EEOC is celebrating yet another victory in a “religious discrimination suit” on behalf of Muslims. “EEOC is proud to support the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices,” said EEOC General Counsel David Lopez. “This is fundamental to the American principles of religious freedom and tolerance.”

One of the EEOC attorneys that litigated the case went overboard, actually saying that Star Transport’s failure to provide human resources personnel with discrimination training led to “catastrophic results” for the Muslim truck drivers. “They suffered real injustice that needed to be addressed,” said the EEOC lawyer, June Calhoun, who added that the jury sent a clear message that employers will be held accountable for their unlawful employment practices. “Moreover, they signaled to Mr. Mohamed and Mr. Bulshale that religious freedom is a right for all Americans,” Calhoun said.

The EEOC’s efforts are part of a broader Obama administration plan to protect and advance Muslim rights in the U.S. This includes dispatching the nation’s Attorney General (at the time Eric Holder) to personally reassure Muslims that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is dedicated to protecting them and allowing a terrorist organization to dictate how law enforcement officers are trained. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), actually got the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to purge anti-terrorism training material considered offensive to Muslims. Judicial Watch obtained hundreds of pages of FBI documents with details of the outrageous arrangement and published a special report.