“She didn’t wear the hijab at her interview or on the first two days of employment. On her third day, she chose to wear it because she felt that she would stay at the job and wearing it was part of her spiritual journey.”
Why the bait and switch? Her spiritual journey had advanced so markedly on the third day of her employment that she suddenly decided right then that she had to wear the hijab? Or did she intentionally mislead Dr. Joo so as to lay the groundwork for this incident?
The dentist’s version of events differs markedly from that of Najaf Khan. Dr. Joo says he asked her to keep a hijab in the office and wear that one, rather than continuing to wear the one she came in off the street wearing — for hygienic reasons, not because of “Islamophobia.” According to Dori Joyner at Creeping Sharia:
In an NBC Washington taped interview, Ms. Khan describes her version of the events that followed.
“I was devastated. The owner told me to take my hijab off and he gave me an ultimatum. I could continue to wear my headscarf and no longer work there. Or I could continue to work there without my headscarf. And when I said I would not compromise my religion for that, he held the door for me and I walked out.”
However, Dr. Chuck Joo, the dentist and office owner, states on the business website and Facebook page:
“Our office does not have any objections to hijabs. We only asked Ms. Khan to wear a separate, clean hijab (for office wear only) or wear a sanitary head cover over her hijab while seeing patients in the office, just like we require all employees to wear full scrubs and not street clothes in the office when treating patients. This dress code has applied to all dental assistants since 2003, when it was first implemented.
Ms. Khan did not find the dress code or the alternative we offered suitable and she then walked out on her own accord.
Ms. Khan was never terminated from our employ. In fact, we contacted her later in the evening on the same day she voluntarily walked out of the office and offered to continue her paid training program.
We had been inspired by Ms. Khan’s enthusiasm to become a dentist, and even though she had no experience working in dentistry, we provided her with a three month paid training opportunity in exchange for eventual full-time employment, something rare in the dental business. Ms. Khan elected not to respond.”
This is clearly yet another case of manufactured “Islamophobia,” designed to reinforce the idea that Muslims are victims, deflect attention away from jihad terror, and to compel non-Muslims to change their practices in order to accommodate Muslim sensibilities, thus reinforcing the principle that wherever Islamic practices conflict with non-Muslim ones, it is non-Muslim practices that must give way. Pamela Geller has a useful compendium of other examples of this phenomenon here.
“Virginia Woman Says She Was Fired for Wearing Hijab,” by Shomari Stone, NBC Washington, August 4, 2016:
A Northern Virginia woman says she was fired from a new job because she wore a Muslim head scarf to work.
“I was really upset. The day that it happened, I was devastated,” Najaf Khan told News4.
Khan said she was hired as a dental assistant last week at Fair Oaks Dental Care in Fairfax County.
She didn’t wear the hijab at her interview or on the first two days of employment.
On her third day, she chose to wear it because she felt that she would stay at the job and wearing it was part of her spiritual journey.
At work that day, she said the owner of Fair Oaks Dental Care, Dr. Chuck Joo, told her to take off the hijab.
Khan said Joo gave her an ultimatum: she could continue wearing the scarf and be fired or work without it.
“When I said that I would not compromise my religion for that, he held the door open for me and I walked out,” Khan said.
Joo told News4 open displays of religion are not allowed at his business because he wants to keep it neutral.
If his employees want to wear a hat, it must be a surgical hat for sanitary reasons, Joo said.
The Council on American Islamic Relations responded to Khan’s termination in the following statement:
“No employee should face termination because of his or her faith or religious practices. We call on Fair Oaks Dental Care to reinstate the Muslim employee and to offer her reasonable religious accommodation as mandated by law.”
Khan said she would likely refuse an offer to return to the dental office because she would not want to work with someone “so close-minded.”