Law firm that rescinded job for pro-Palestine lawyer must face bias lawsuit

By David Thomas

Jan 26 (Reuters) - U.S. law firm Foley & Lardner must face a discrimination lawsuit from a Muslim lawyer in Illinois who said the firm rescinded her job offer because she expressed support for Palestinians in the Israel-Hamas war, a federal judge in Chicago ruled on Monday.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman said the dispute between Jinan Chehade and Foley & Lardner is "rife with issues of material fact" that are best left to a jury to decide.

Chehade accused Foley of ethnic and religious discrimination, claiming the firm "relied on stereotypes about Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians as inherently violent and anti-Jewish."

Chehade alleged the law firm began investigating her following social media posts and remarks she made criticizing Israel's actions in Gaza during an October 11, 2023 Chicago City Council meeting. Chehade shared a post on social media that said, in part, "If you support Palestine understand that necessitates supporting our right to defend ourselves and liberate our homeland by any means necessary," according to Coleman.

Chehade said she was fired on October 22, 2023, 15 hours before she was scheduled to start as an associate in the firm's Chicago office.

Paul Vickrey, a lawyer for Chehade, said her life was "turned upside down by the decision to rescind her offer, and the accompanying accusation that she supported terrorism. She looks forward to showing at trial that the firm's stated reason for pulling her offer was false."

A Foley spokesperson said they were disappointed in Coleman's ruling but "remain confident in our actions and continue to believe Ms. Chehade's claims lack merit."

Coleman said in her ruling that while Chehade was fired, other attorneys at Foley, including a partner who called for Palestinians to be "held accountable" for electing Hamas, were not disciplined or reprimanded.

"If non-Arab, non-Muslim attorneys were not evaluated against the same standards as Chehade for the same conduct, such that she was held to some separate, undefined standard, that could lead a juror to conclude that there was discrimination," the judge said in denying Foley's request for summary judgment.

Chehade, who graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2023, said she had been questioned by two senior Foley partners about her background, her prior role in the group Students for Justice in Palestine, and her father's work at a local mosque.

In court papers, Foley argued that the partners who questioned Chehade had "the impression" she condoned Hamas's attack. Following Chehade's meeting with its partners, the firm said it determined her "conduct violated its core values, and it rescinded its offer of employment to her."

It's up to a jury to decide how sincere Foley's partners were in reaching that conclusion, Coleman said.

Hamas' October 7, 2023 attacks in Israel and Israel's response sparked widespread campus protests against Israel's military campaign in Gaza.

Some U.S. law firms retracted job offers to law students who pinned responsibility for Hamas' attack on Israel or who held leadership positions in groups that issued public statements supporting Palestine.

The case is Jinan Chehade v. Foley & Lardner, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 1:24-cv-04414.

For Jinan Chehade: Rima Kapitan of Kapitan Gomaa Law; and Paul Vickrey, Patrick Solon and Dylan Brown of Vitale, Vickrey, Niro, Solon & Gasey

For Foley & Lardner: Gerald Pauling, Tracy Billows and Emily Miller of Seyfarth Shaw