Fired worker files religious discrimination suit against Cherokee sex offender unit

SIOUX CITY | A former security officer at a Cherokee, Iowa, sex offender treatment unit has filed a religious discrimination lawsuit in which he claims he was fired because he included the words "In Christ" in his email signature at work.

Michael Mial, of Estherville, Iowa, says his supervisors at the Civil Commitment Unit for Sexual Offenders, or CCUSO, located on the Cherokee Mental Health Institute campus, praised him as a great employee whose religious faith was beneficial to patients, then asked him to keep his religion separate from his work.

Those supervisors "... attempted to persuade (Mial) from his religious beliefs. On numerous occasions, they even stated that he should separate his beliefs from work or just separate his personal and professional lives," according to the suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City.

Mial had been hired on Dec. 7, 2015, as a psychiatric security specialist and was in his six-month probationary period when he began using "In Christ" in the personalized signature block that appeared in internal emails sent to a handful of other employees.

Read more: http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/fired-worker-files-religious-discrimination-suit-against-cherokee-sex-offender/article_e0739716-4e7b-5e5f-9432-736cafe68826.html