MI Muslim sues Consumers Energy for $15 Million

(L-R - Dawud Walid, Bilal Sekou, Attorney Nabih Ayad)

CLICK to hear audio: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/michigan/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1379997

Muslim Sues Utility for Discrimination
Sarah Hulett

DEARBORN, MICH. (2008-10-02) An employee with Consumers Energy is filing a $15 million discrimination lawsuit against the company today in Michigan’s Third Circuit Court.

Bilal Sekou is a Muslim. He says co-workers blamed him for acts of terrorism including the 9-11 attacks and said Muslims should be “wiped out,” and he says his supervisors retaliated against him after he complained about the harassment.

Dawud Walid heads the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. He says Sekou’s treatment is similar to the kind of blatant discrimination leveled against blacks and Jews in the past.

“We believe that Islamophobia has become the new, acceptable form of bigotry in American society,” he said.(MORE)

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http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081003/METRO/810030329/1409/METRO

Harassment suit targets Consumers Energy

Employee seeks $15M, claims discrimination for years over

his Muslim faith.

Maureen Feighan / The Detroit News

FARMINGTON HILLS — A Detroit man is suing his employer, Consumers Energy, for $15 million, alleging he was harassed and discriminated against for years because of his Muslim faith and his superiors did nothing to stop it.

An attorney for Bilal Sekou, 49, a gas technician and former champion boxer, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Wayne Circuit Court against Consumers, a co-worker, and two supervisors, alleging his civil rights were violated.

“It hurts me. It affects my heart,” said Sekou, a 16-year Consumers employee who worked out of the utility’s Livonia office. He was suspended Monday from his job for comments he says he didn’t make.

“It makes me feel like a woman who has been raped and doesn’t want to tell anyone. I almost feel ashamed… (But) I did nothing to deserve this,” Sekou said during a press conference in Farmington Hills

Sekou contends the harassment started 14 years ago when he changed his name from Joe Louis Manley Jr. to what it is now and wore a traditional Muslim head covering to work called a kufi. He said supervisors and co-workers told him to “get that rag off” his head, blamed him for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and asked if he was a member of al-Qaida.

In his lawsuit, he said one co-worker said “We need to kill all the crazy a– Muslims” and when Sekou said he was Muslim, the co-worker said, “We need to wipe you out, too, and just take care of the problem.”

Jeff Holyfield, a Consumers Energy spokesman, said the utility doesn’t comment on pending litigation but the company has “a longstanding commitment to diversity.”

“Our corporate code of conduct includes some very clear and very strong language that we need to respect our colleagues in all ways,” he said.

Sekou said he filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1996, which found there was discrimination. Two supervisors were removed but the harassment continued, he said.

The director of the EEOC’s Detroit’s office said for privacy reasons she couldn’t confirm or deny if a complaint had been filed or the outcome.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said many Muslims are discriminated against every day but they’re too scared to stand up against it. He urged Arab Americans and Muslim Americans to rethink using Consumers. (MORE)