A lawsuit was recently filed against the City of Wilmington after it allegedly discriminated against a “teacher and her young Muslim students.” According to the lawsuit, the teacher and her students were “asked to leave a public pool in June,” and other members of the Darul Amaanah Academy, where the students attended, claim they have “been repeatedly harassed by management and staff at the Foster Brown Pool.”
A lawsuit was recently filed against the City of Wilmington after it allegedly discriminated against a “teacher and her young Muslim students.” According to the lawsuit, the teacher and her students were “asked to leave a public pool in June,” and other members of the Darul Amaanah Academy, where the students attended, claim they have “been repeatedly harassed by management and staff at the Foster Brown Pool.”
The Darul Amaanah Academy is an Islamic youth enrichment program. Occasionally the teachers and enjoy taking students to the Foster Brown Pool for a chance to get out of the classroom and cool off. However, according to the allegations detailed out in the suit, during the visit to the pool in June, the pool manager called the police on the students and teacher “and were asked to leave because they were wearing cotton clothing and head scarves.”
Tim Kiser via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/
The incident sparked an apology from the city’s mayor, Mike Purzycki, and a cease and desist letter was issued to the Foster Brown Pool last month. However, despite the apologies and letter, “the city has done little to address the alleged discrimination,” according to attorney Juvaria Khan of Muslim Advocates, a national legal advocacy organization. Khan added:
“This is an organization founded decades ago by the African-American community that’s been in Wilmington for generations and is really seeking to create a safe space for children to learn about their culture and faith and instill them with self-confidence and self-respect for who they are. So the actions of this summer and being targeted repeatedly because of their faith and their background has undermined those goals completely. Bringing this lawsuit for the plaintiffs is a way to reclaim what they set out to do from day one, which is making sure these kids have a safe environment where they can exist as they are.”
In addition to the complaints about being kicked out of the pool, the suit also argues that the city “violated the group’s constitutional rights by repeatedly targeting them based on their religious beliefs,” and Khan agrees. She said, “There’s pretty clear evidence here there’s no written policy in place that would justify these actions.” She added:
“To the extent they’re trying to allege there is a policy that exists it’s being applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner against these children in particular when there are plenty of other patrons at the pool wearing similar clothing, such as a T-shirt or shorts, because for many people who go to the city’s public pools that’s the type of clothing they can afford to wear and none of those individuals are getting targeted.”
She also noted that a lot of young children were involved in the incident back in June, some as young as five and six-years-old. Khan said the children “have been scarred by this experience, coming home regularly, crying to their parents, and asking, ‘Why do people hate Muslims?’ Some of the kids are scared to go back to any pool, some of the kids have stopped wearing headscarves. It’s really had a lasting impact and traumatized these children to a large degree.”
At the moment, the lawsuit is requesting the city to “create clear written pool policies that also ensure religious rights are respected.” Additionally, it wants the city to “train staff on the policy and post adequate notice so patrons understand the rules,” according to the suit.
So far the city has declined to comment on the pending litigation.
Sources:
Pool incident sparks religious discrimination lawsuit against Wilmington
Lawsuit: pattern of discrimination against Muslim youth continued at city pool
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