Photo: Registered Nurse John Benitez Jr. Fired for Treating Muslim Women Wearing Hijab
A male nurse in Michigan has filed a sex-discrimination alleging that he was fired after he treated a woman wearing conservative Muslim dress known as hijab.
John Benitez Jr., 63, a registered nurse and Vietnam war Army medic working at hospital in the Detroit suburb f Dearborn says he was told by a Muslim supervisor not to care for Muslim women in hijab, and to refer them to her, the nursing supervisor.
However, on November 17, 2010, a doctor witnessed him referring a Muslim woman and questioned him about it. He explained what he had been told, and the doctor told him to stop doing that and to treat them himself.
He complied, but less than a month later he was fired. His lawyer, Deborah L. Gordon said her client was told that his termination was “not because of any performance problem, but was instead carried out because the clinic’s conservative male Muslim clientele did not want a male treating female patients.”
In October 2011, Benitez was told by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that he did have the right to sue, and his case was since filed in the Detroit U.S. District Court on Wednesday.
