Source: The Buffalo News
On January 6, 2001, The Buffalo News reported that "a Williamsville company has settled a lawsuit with two Jewish women [from Buffalo], who claimed they were discriminated against because their religious beliefs prevented them from working on Saturdays." Attorneys from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that Esther Smothers and Amanda Brooks, both in their 20s, "received a combined $ 50,000 in damages and back pay from National Action Financial Services/SITEL, one of the largest collection agencies in Western New York." In addition, the business, which "admitted no wrongdoing," will implement an anti-discrimination policy and will be monitored by the EEOC. EEOC attorney Katherine E. Bissel said, "Employers should be aware that the EEOC considers religious discrimination to be just as serious as other forms of discrimination and that it will continue to prosecute these cases accordingly." Smothers worked at the company as a collector for two months before "she was fired in August 1999, after she asked for Saturdays off because she was Jewish and could not work the Sabbath." Smothers filed a claim with the EEOC, which "filed a lawsuit on her behalf and charged that she was maliciously discriminated against under the Civil Rights Act." Brooks was also not hired when she "told company officials she was Jewish and could not work on the Sabbath." According to government data, "there were more than 28,000 racial discrimination allegations and 23,000 sex-based discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1999," but only "1,800 religious discrimination claims that year." EEOC attorney R. Liliana Palacios explained that that is why "employers are unaware they have liability."