The Inquirer reported on Thursday (March 17), that “A former athletic trainer for the Agnes Irwin School has filed a federal discrimination charge, alleging she was unlawfully fired by the Main Line private school after parents complained about years-old social media posts criticizing Israel.”
Press Release from CAIR
(PHILADELPHIA, PA, 3/16/2022) — The Philadelphia Chapter of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philadelphia) today announced it has filed a federal charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) against Agnes Irwin School (AIS), a private all-girls school, on behalf of Natalie Abulhawa, a Palestinian American Muslim athletic trainer, after she was terminated from her employment within mere days of announcing her hire in the school newsletter.
The complaint was filed by CAIR-Philadelphia Civil Rights Attorney Timothy Welbeck and Ryan Allen Hancock, of Willig, Williams, and Davidson. Mr. Hancock is an attorney with extensive experience with employment and civil rights litigation who was retained by CAIR-Philadelphia to co-represent Ms. Abulhawa.
The complaint alleges AIS wrongfully terminated Ms. Abulhawa by using nearly decade-old social media posts as a pretext for her termination. It should be noted that said social media posts were compiled by a known Islamophobic site.
Ms. Abulhawa, a Palestinian Muslim young woman, received an offer for employment to join AIS as a full-time Certified Athletic Trainer. Prior to joining AIS, Ms. Abulhawa successfully completed and passed multiple screenings, including a general and criminal background check, education and employment verification, employment recommendations and other screenings.
It should be noted that Agnes Irwin School did not terminate similarly situated employees, who are not in Ms. Abulhawa’s protected class, for their previous and recent social media posts.
In a statement, Natalie Abulhawa said:
“It is unacceptable that Agnes Irwin treated me with such contempt and disrespect. Employment discrimiantion against Palestinian Americans and Muslim Americans is a real problem. Agnes Irwin School did not think twice before bulldozing my life, without even a pretense of due process. It only took a known hate site to profile me for them to derail my career. I am telling my story today so that Agnes Irwin School, which purports to empower women, can be held accountable for the ways in which they demeaned, humiliated, and harmed me.”
Canary Mission, a website that documents “people and groups that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews,” compiled numerous anti-Israel Tweets that Abulhawa posted, most of which date back to 2016, when she was a student at Temple University.
According to the Inquirer, Abulhawa did not dispute the accuracy of the tweets the site attributed to her but said they were selected “to confirm their narrative” and sometimes lacked context.
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