Augusta man sues retailer over alleged ethnic slurs

BANGOR – An Iranian-born U.S. citizen who is a Seventh-day Adventist has sued Sears in federal court, alleging that his direct supervisor at the store where he worked in Augusta referred to him as a “sand [n-word]” and “the terrorist” and called his religious views “crap.”

Kaveh Khansari Nejad, 28, of Augusta filed the complaint Tuesday in U.S. District Court. He is seeking a jury trial along with back pay, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney fees and an injunction ordering Sears to require affirmative training and take other steps to ensure other Maine employees are not discriminated against in the same way he was.

A trial date has not been set.

A spokeswoman for Sears said Wednesday that the firm does not comment on pending litigation.

“Sears has just got its head in the sand [about this incident],” Khansari’s attorney, David Webbert of Augusta, said Wednesday. “What is their excuse for not taking any action after this was reported? I can’t think of one.”

The Maine Human Rights Commission found in June that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Khansari had been discriminated against on the basis of religion, race, color, national origin and ancestry, according to the lawsuit. The commission issued a right-to-sue letter in August after its efforts to reach a settlement with the Chicago-based retailer were unsuccessful.

Khansari became a permanent resident of the U.S. in 1997 and a citizen on Oct. 10, 2008. He worked from September 2005 through January 2008 as an assistant store manager in the home improvement department of the Sears store in Augusta.

He also is a devout follower of the Seventh-day Adventist denomination, which requires he perform no work from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. When he was interviewed and hired for his job, the then-store manager told him that the company would accommodate his religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit. Khansari worked every Sunday, according to the lawsuit.

Less than a month after he began working at the store, the manager who had hired him moved to a different location and Theresa Zardus became the new store manager and his direct supervisor. She allegedly unfairly denied him pay raises, promotions, access to training opportunities and allegedly forced him to perform duties that caused him to reinjure his back.

Khansari and other store employees complained about how Zardus treated him via a hot line designed for reporting suspected discrimination against employees, according to the lawsuit. The suit alleges that Sears did not take them seriously and did not properly investigate them.

Webbert speculated Wednesday that one of the things that might have contributed to the alleged discrimination against his client was the fact that he practiced a religious denomination not normally associated with his Middle Eastern origins.

jharrison@bangordailynews.net

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