Canadian massage school fined for denying service to Muslim client
The director of a BC massage school must pay $12,500 after the Human Rights Tribunal found she discriminated against a new client who was Muslim.
The dramatic interaction was chronicled in a tribunal decision posted online this month after Majid Shahadat, a Muslim man, filed a complaint over the treatment.
In 2019, he booked a treatment online with Northern School of Massage in Fort Saint John, BC. He inputted basic information, including his name, email address, and phone number.
Later, the school’s director, Joyce Middleton, emailed him, asking him to “certify” he was not “of the Islamic faith” to get a massage.
Her entire email read:
Dear Mr. Shahadat:
Thank-you for your patronage of our school. I am sorry to request of you
credentials. We rarely accept new clients outside the area of Fort St. John
for our own protection.
I am asking you to certify you are not of the Islamic faith, which as you
know has earned a bad reputation for raping and killing of infidels in
Canada and elsewhere.
I apologize, this is not meant to be offensive, but I have to be watchful
over my students as I am sure you will be able to understand.
Yours in sincerity,
Jo Middleton, Northern School of Massage
Shahadat describes himself as a “proud Canadian” after living here for 25 years. He was born in Bahrain and is of mixed Arab and Indian descent.
The school’s response shocked him, and he filed a human rights complaint.
Tribunal member Devyn Cousineau sided with Shahadat, finding that Middleton denied him a service ordinarily available to the public because he was a Muslim man.
As for Middleton’s defence, she doubled down in her discriminatory views, alleging Muslim men were dangerous and claimed she needed to protect the students working at the massage school.
“In doing so, she has not only proven the elements of this human rights complaint but deepened the extent of the harm to Mr. Shahadat,” Cousineau wrote in her decision. “Ms. Middleton has taken patently untrue ideas about Islam and Muslim men, rooted in Islamophobia, and applied them to Mr. Shahadat. She then acted on that stereotyping to deny Mr. Shahadat a service customarily available to the public.”
Middleton was ordered to pay Shahadat $10,000 in damages plus $2,500 for costs incurred.
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