A Muslim student is suing the University of Bridgeport for ignoring her complaints of sexual harassment and retaliating by turning her into the FBI for terrorism.
Balayla Ahmad filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday alleging that she was sexually harassed by a male student for months in 2009. Ahmad’s lawsuit states that when she reported the harassment, university officials showed “deliberate indifference to her different harassment complaints.
She also says that university officials disseminated false terrorism accusations by her harasser that they had good reason the believe were false and threatened her with arrest.
Retaliation for reporting harassment is illegal, but colleges and workplaces use this as a tool to silence sexual harassment complaints. The victims of harassment, who are subjected to this treatment, can hire sexual harassment attorneys to hold the guilty parties accountable for their actions.
Ahmad wears a hijad, a traditional scarf worn by Muslim women, so her religious beliefs were obvious. She says her harasser repeatedly made vulgar and offensive statements and repeatedly tried to initiate a sexual relationship.
Often times people who are harassed find that they are ignored or dismissed. In these instances, their best hope of getting the behavior to stop is to hire a sexual harassment lawyer.
A
sexual harassment attorney wants
people to know that they don’t have to put up with this behavior and have a way
to hold the harasser account for their actions.
