Background info: I am a marketing and communications professional with over 12+ years of experience and in my early 30s. My current job is working for a top rated, private and independent religious K-8 school in Chicago. Compared to writing copy for advertisements for vasectomies in a previous job, I love my current job, but I’m underpaid and unfairly treated.
For the purposes of this post and to prevent identifying my place of work, let’s pretend we are a Muslim academic organization. Even though our focus and teachings are focused around Islam, we call ourselves an “interfaith” school because we “allow” non Muslim families to be admitted, but only as long as one of the parents is Muslim.
I am not Muslim. I grew up Catholic and went to an all girls Catholic high school. Now, as an adult in my 30’s, I’m agnostic and don’t believe in fictional fairytales or that anyone is more special than the other because of their religious beliefs. There are around 250 employees in my organization. 75-80% are Muslim. 25-30% are in the minority subgroup – either we practice a different religion or another form of religion-nothing at all. Here are some examples of special treatment or religious bias:
• a team of us are invited out for a team lunch. Based on previous team outings, we all assume this will be paid for by the school/company. This is quickly corrected when the person who organized it follows up to let us know it isn’t a school sponsored lunch. Ok, sucks, but no big deal. Fast forward to the next week – you learn that someone on your team that lacked initiative, always did all of their tasks incorrectly and would cause you more work, who would email and ask how to insert a logo into a header on a document in Microsoft Word (this person was 25) has finally been given the boot after many many complaints amongst colleagues about this co-workers performance. Two days later, everyone in our immediate office building is invited to attend a goodbye dinner for this terrible employee that a supervisor finally had the nerve to fire. Everyone is invited except the three Non-Muslim employees. The non Muslim employees aren’t even told about this dinner and find out when everyone leaves all at once. Upon returning from dinner, the non Muslim employees learn that the goodbye dinner for the terrible employee was paid for by the organization. When asked if we can have our lunch costs reimbursed, we are told no.
Before the new HR manager, a good friend of mine, a Black woman (1 out of 2 people of color) and non-Muslim employee was our HR head. Our common supervisor harassed this Black woman during mandatory food service training by continuously calling her out in front of everyone and asking if she needed special gloves because her nails were long. She also repeatedly pushed her to wear a hairnet and didn’t ask any other non Black employees.
A Muslim employee who is in their first year at my work and it is their first job out of college is given the opportunity to go on an all expense paid trip with students for 2.5 weeks to Europe on top of being given spending money as well as getting paid their regular salary (same for all chaperones). Myself, a non Muslim employee of 6 years now, has openly been dying to go on this all expense trip that is a huge selling point for our school. I have been extremely vocal about expressing my desire to go on this trip and even wrote a proposal to create an awesome video of the students to use for marketing purposes. Everyone at that school knew i wanted to go. It was no secret. No one else who actually “applied” for the trip took the time to write out a proposal, like I did. And this brand new, inexperienced (but Muslim!) 23 year old employee did not even apply or express a desire to go. Their grandmother was ill and on her deathbed. Instead of opening the position back up to the rest of the school, a specific individual in leadership took it upon herself to give this opportunity to the new Muslim employee that she really likes. I have asked for policies regarding the selection of chaperones for this trip but was instead told it’s done behind closed doors and the people responsible for choosing chaperones would never ever EVER in a million years discriminate!
The son of of this specific leadership individual, a 7th grader, called me out during a schoolwide Muslim celebration and while I’m recording a video on my phone, he asks me “why are you participating? You aren’t Muslim.” This student is the son of a higher up “leader” in my school. How does he know I’m not Muslim unless that’s been discussed or overheard in conversations at home?
I am an extremely hard worker and get tons of compliments and acknowledgement about my performance and work. I have been denied promotions, salary increases, professional development opportunities, extra benefits (some employees get to park in the school lot for free – others have to pay $65 a month for parking garage across street. When asked why the Muslims get to have free parking while the rest of us have to pay, we are told “that’s just how it is.”) I should also point out tuition starts in Nursery at around $30k a year and reaches around $60k a year for middle school students. Our Head of School makes $550k, has a $30k housing allowance and just received a cash bonus of $50,000 as of last week. This person does absolutely nothing to earn that salary.
I have pointed out the special treatment and religious bias and have taken all the appropriate steps and have documented every single email. I have been especially vocal about these issues over the last couple of years. Our HR department consists of 1 inexperienced gal who just started 5 months ago. Her direct supervisor is also my supervisor’s boss. So HR’s responses are first screened through my own boss, which is basically no help at all.
Little instances (and sometimes big ones) like the examples above, have been happening and building up for over 2 years now. A few of us non Muslims (around 9-10 of us that openly discuss these frustrations) have tried considering our options and figuring out what’s actual religious bias and mistreatment when it pertains to working within a religious organization. It’s my understanding that a religious organization can have a preference on religious beliefs of potential employees in the hiring process, but as a current employee, do I have any grounds with this as mistreatment or bias? I know the answer is to talk to a lawyer, a professional who can help, but will that cost money to even speak with them to see if we have a case? I want to stay in this job (I truly love what I do) and with this company, but I also want to expose the toxic leadership/environment and try to make it a better place than it is now. Any and all advice or suggestions welcomed!
Edited to add and ask: how the f can organizations be considered non-profits when their top employee makes half a million dollars? The next top 5 salaries range from $250k-$150k. Make it make sense?