“We could have dismissed him, but he came in and resigned,” Fisher

CALIFORNIA, February 29 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A U.S. professor who ordered a student to take off her religiously-mandated hijab has resigned following harsh criticism from his college.

Robert Daniel, an instructor at Antelope Valley College, resigned Friday, February 27, in writing, heading off questioning and diatribe by the college’s board of trustees, Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, February 28.

“We could have dismissed him - that was an option - but he came in and resigned,” said interim college President Jackie Fisher.

“He will not be rehired or work here again…. Daniel clearly had acted inappropriately.”

The college said other instructors will be brought in to teach the two spring semester courses that had been assigned to Daniel.

The quick move was applauded by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim advocacy group in the United States.

“We are very pleased by the quick response of the Antelope Valley College leadership president and the board. This sends the right message that we live in a country that respects freedom of religion,” said Ra'id Faraj, spokesman for CAIR’s Southern California office.

“It's really bizarre that we would encounter this in a college,” he added.

Fajr Burhan, a 19-year-old electrical engineering student, was also allowed to return to her classes.

Representatives of CAIR-LA, the Los Angeles Hate Crime Task Force in the Antelope Valley area, and local interfaith and community leaders joined the student's family members in a meeting with the president of the college.

At that meeting, CAIR-LA requested that AVC initiate an investigation into the incident, take disciplinary action against the professor, issue an apology to the Muslim student and conduct sensitivity trainings for faculty and staff at the college.

Earlier in the month, a Louisiana high school removed a social studies teacher after he forcibly pulled the hijab of a Muslim student and made offensive remarks about her faith.

Hijab is a religious obligation not a symbol to be easily abandoned.

Muslim Compensated

Meanwhile, a Muslim airlines worker in the American city of Houston, Texas, has been awarded $250,000 in compensation for being harassed on the job for his ethnic and religious background.

Nizar Kamal, who worked for Continental Airlines and was fired in September, won his case after a federal jury ruled that his supervisors had used ethnic and racial slurs against him, the Associated Press reported Saturday, February 28.

He had sued Houston-based Continental in 2001, saying co-workers and
supervisors had made slurs against him since the first Gulf War in 1990.

He said that they also posted demeaning cartoons and once locked him in a portable
toilet, the news agency added.

Kamal is trying to get his job back through the U.S. Equal Opportunity
Commission.

Seeking to clear stereotypes about Muslims, more than 100 Muslim leaders from across the U.S. held a conference near Washington in June, to prove for the American people that Muslims are “sincere partners” in this society.