Being a Wiccan isn't usually a reason to lose your job, but it was in the case of Carole A. Smith, a TSA worker at Albany's International airport who found herself officially out of work last June, after months of alleged harassment centered around her religion, according to MSNBC. But she hardly had a complaint before her co-workers found of she was a witch.
The 49-year-old Wiccan argues that her firing had almost everything to do with her practices. Prior to a March 2009 complaint when she was accused of putting a hex on a co-worker's car, her record was nearly spotless.
She was in the top 10 percent in Albany at catching weapons on the X-ray machine. She passed her skills test on the first try. She caught a woman on her way to Vietnam with $30,000 in cash. And she didn't mind working with the passengers -- her training as a massage therapist kept her from being squeamish, as some officers were, about patting down elderly and special-needs passengers.
From that point on things got worse and worse, according to the MSNBC report. Smith's file quickly bulged, and eventually she found herself in court fighting to get her job back.
Smith claims that for over a year she found herself subject to school-yard bullying, and harassment based on her Wicca practices. However, her complaints to officials higher-up went unheeded.
Though the TSA did have a large file on her prior to the trial, even the judge pointed out that officials kept changing their stories. While they did have good enough reason to terminate her employment in the end, the complaints began with suspicious circumstances.
Watch the full report, from MSNBC, below, or click here for the full report.
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