Michigan Court Blows Hole in Islamophobia Defense

The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed a Wayne County Circuit Court decision to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit against Ford Motor Company lodged by a former temp employee accusing Ford of not calling him back for more assignments “because he is Arab.”

You may find the details interesting. Saleem Shariff, and three of his coworkers, Ali Alward, Abdul Mohamed, and Saleh Mohamed Omar, were all working as temp employees at the Ford Woodhaven plant on the morning of 9/11. When news of the World Trade Center attack reached their work area, the four exhibited “signs of celebration . . .laughing and exchanging high-fives after learning of the deadly terrorist attack.”

Shariff’s behavior was brought to the attention of a labor relations employee, Dave Allen. The opinion doesn’t say so, but it’s safe to assume that outraged UAW members made their feelings clear that Shareef and his jubilant friends weren’t welcome on the shop floor. Allen and union reps agreed that decided that Shariff would be allowed to finish his temporary assignment, but would only be considered for future assignments at other locations. Presumably, this meant at locations where no one knew about them or their asshole behavior.

As it happened, Shareef received no more assignments. He and his pals filed a lawsuit alleging they were denied employment because of their national origin. The plaintiffs claimed that labor relations rep Dave Allen had it in for them not because of how they behaved on 9/11, which they didn't deny, but because they were Arab. The Wayne County Circuit Court threw the lawsuit out, finding that any animus Allen may have had against Shareer had nothing to do with his national origin, but was because of the way he had acted on 9/11.

Shareef appealed, and in this opinion the Court of Appeals agrees with the trial court. Shareef makes the unreasonable, but somehow familiar, claim that, while, yes, he may have rejoiced with pro-Islamist sympathy for terrorist attacks killing Americans while on the shop floor of a UAW auto plant, but that’s only being held against him now because he’s an Arab.

The Court of Appeals puts this theory’s flawed logic to death with succinct dryness: “This constitutes speculation whether laughing and exchanging high-fives after learning of the deadly terrorist attack would have been deemed acceptable if he had belonged to another ethnicity.”

Consider this a small victory against the hollowed-out fiction known as “Islamophobia.”

Political correctness has distorted the legitimate purpose of America’s anti-discrimination laws. Instead of protection from prejudice against race, religion, or sex, a sensible goal most Americans instinctively embrace, PC demands a blanket of immunity over bad behavior because the bad actors’ race, religion, or sex places them beyond consequences. Major Malik Hasan was acting bad when he did a Powerpoint presentation advertising Islamic jihadism, but nobody said a thing from fear of being called an Islamophobe.

In this case, Michigan judges recognized that displaying sympathy for jihadist terrorism has consequences no matter who you are, and you can't just grab the umbrella of "discrimination" to keep those consequences off your head. Kudos.