Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—S.D. Tex.: Muslim security guard, fired after supervisor allegedly falsified report, advances claims, (Apr 22, 2025)

By Todd Harrison, J.D.

The guard was also repeatedly told to shave his beard and was subjected to racial slurs by his supervisor, who also served on a panel that recommended he be terminated.

A former security guard who is Kurdish, of Iraqi origin, and a practicing Muslim can move forward with his federal and state-law claims alleging discrimination based on race, national origin, and religion, as well as a claim for retaliation, ruled a federal district court in Texas. The employee had repeated conflicts with his supervisor who told him he needed to shave his beard, threatened to “fry [him] like a chicken,” and allegedly referred to him as a “sand n****r.” Ultimately, the employee was fired for a use of force violation, although he asserted that the supervisor had falsified the incident report and a cat’s paw theory of liability could be established because the supervisor served on a panel that recommended the termination (Ahmed v. Universal Protection Service, LP dba Allied Universal Security Services, No. 23-2823 (S.D. Tex. Apr. 18, 2025)).

The employee worked as a security guard for the employer from December 2021 until he was fired in April 2022.

Beard policy. About one month into his employment, the security guard was placed into an “elite” training program. While in this program, his supervisor told him he had to shave his beard, per company policy. The employee took note of other security guards with beards, some of which were longer than his.

A few weeks later, another manager told the employee that he had to shave his beard. The employee informed his manager that his religion required him to maintain a beard. Nevertheless, he eventually gave in to continued pressure to shave his beard.

Confrontation. Eventually, the employee was assigned to a post at an HEB grocery store. At some point, his supervisor accused him of missing a day of work. When the employee tried to explain that he had not missed any days of work, the supervisor became irate, screaming at the employee that he would “fry [him] like a f***ing chicken” and that “this is America. This is not where you came from. This is America, we run things differently. I don’t know how the f**k you got into the military, a dumbass like you.”

Use of force incident. In April 2022, while on duty at HEB, the store manager called him into the store where the employee saw two men he knew had been barred from HEB properties because of previous thefts. The two were allegedly engaged in attempted theft. The employee met the men at the door to prevent them from leaving and asked them to pay for their items. After one of the men threatened to cut the employee with a knife, he told the store manager to call the police and detained the man in handcuffs until the police arrived.

Report. The next day, the employee’s supervisor asked the employee to sign a written report about the incident. The employee refused to do so because the report was inaccurate and portrayed him as the aggressor. He was told he was suspended and to return the following day to turn in his gun and taser. The supervisor threatened to “destroy” the employee, again told him he would “fry [him] like a chicken” and that he should “go back to where [he] came from.”

When the employee returned the next day, the supervisor referred to him as a “sand n****r.” When the employee protested, the supervisor closed the door and began threatening him again. The employee asserted that he reported the supervisor’s use of racial slurs, physical threats, and discriminatory and retaliatory actions to the employer’s HR department both in person and in writing.

Ultimately the employee was terminated purportedly for violating the employer’s use of force policy during the HEB incident. He subsequently filed this action asserting claims for racial discrimination under state law, Title VII, and Section 1981, and for national origin and religious discrimination under state law and Title VII. He also asserted a claim for unlawful retaliation under state law, Title VII, and Section 1981. The employer moved for summary judgment against all claims.

Self-serving? First, the court addressed the employee’s claims for race and national origin discrimination, noting his sworn declaration and deposition testimony that his supervisor threatened him and directed racial slurs at him. In response, the employer argued that the employee presented no competent evidence of the derogatory statements, and instead was “rel[ying] solely on his own self-serving declaration without any corroborating evidence.” The court was not moved.

The employee’s deposition testimony and sworn declaration are competent summary judgment evidence, explained the court. Evidence proffered by one side to defeat a motion for summary judgment will always be self-serving, observed the court.

Hearsay? In addition, the court explained that the declaration and deposition statements about what the supervisor allegedly said to the employee were not inadmissible hearsay, as asserted by the employer. Hearsay is an out-of-court statement submitted to prove an underlying fact’s truth. At no point did the employee allege that the supervisor threatened to “fry him like a chicken” to show that the supervisor actually did, or planned to, fry him like a chicken.

Direct evidence. Even if the supervisor denied making the statements in question, there was at least a factual dispute as to whether the statements were made, said the court, and some of those statements may be viewed as direct evidence of racial and national origin animus. The comments that the supervisor allegedly made to the employee—referring to him as a “sand n****r” and telling him to “go back where you came from”—clearly related to his race and national origin.

Further, the record showed that these alleged comments were made on April 6, a panel met to discuss terminating the employee on April 7, and the supervisor submitted a form stating the employee had been terminated on April 26. This was sufficient to satisfy the temporal proximity requirement. The record also showed that the supervisor was part of the panel that recommended the termination, which was enough to satisfy the remaining elements showing direct evidence of discrimination.

Pretext? Shifting the burden to the employer to show that it would have made the decision to terminate the employee even in the absence of discriminatory animus, the court found the employer fell short of meeting its burden. The employee presented evidence that the disciplinary report the supervisor was supposed to have drafted following the purported use of force violation was inaccurate and may have been falsified to include a witness signature. The record also showed that the panel could have been tainted by the supervisor’s alleged bias. As such, the court determined that the record presented factual disputes material to determining whether the termination decision was a pretext for discrimination, and summary judgment was not appropriate as to these claims.

Religious discrimination. Turning to the employee’s claims for religious discrimination, the employer again objected to the employee’s evidence he was told to shave his beard as inadmissible hearsay. The court again rejected this argument. Evidence the employee was told to shave his beard, was never informed about requesting a religious exemption, and being told that if he did not shave he would lose his job was sufficient to raise a triable issue as to religious discrimination. Accordingly, summary judgment against this claim was also denied.

Retaliation. Next, the court considered the employee’s claims for unlawful retaliation. He asserted that he experienced retaliation for: (1) requesting to keep his beard for religious purposes; (2) reporting discrimination to HR on January 31, 2022; (3) complaining about the supervisor’s discrimination on April 6; and (4) reporting the supervisor’s discrimination and harassment on April 25.

Causal connection. According to the employer, the retaliation claims failed because the employee did not engage in protected activity prior to his termination. The court agreed that the complaint made after April 7, when the panel decided to terminate his employment, was too late to show retaliation. However, the employee did show the necessary causal connection between his termination and the January 31 and April 6 complaints.

Legitimate reason? Shifting the burden to the employer to show it had a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating the employee, it pointed to the use of force incident report. However, the employee had made the “but-for” causation showing to raise a factual dispute as to pretext. Specifically, the employee presented evidence that after weeks of verbal abuse directed at his race and national origin, the supervisor did not follow the proper process for documenting the use of force incident. He also proffered evidence that the report was inaccurate.

Cat’s paw. Nevertheless, the employer emphasized that it was not the supervisor, but a panel, that decided to fire the employee. However, the record showed the supervisor was also a member of the panel and had drafted a “root cause analysis” that the panel reviewed prior to making its decision. The record reflected that the supervisor had ample opportunity to influence the process by which the employee was terminated, which was sufficient to establish a cat’s paw theory of liability. As such, summary judgment was denied with regard to the retaliation claims.

The case is No. 23-2823.

Judge: Rosenthal, L.

Attorneys: Amanda Christine Hernandez (AH Law Firm) for Twana Ahmed. Jessica Eunseon Chang (Martenson, Hasbrouck & Simon) for Universal Protection Service, LP dba Allied Universal Security Services.

Companies: Universal Protection Service, LP; Allied Universal Security Services

Cases: Discrimination NationalOrigin RaceDiscrimination ReligiousDiscrimination Discharge Retaliation TexasNews GCNNews