Chaplain sues Northwestern, alleges firing over campus discrimination complaints

Following another formal complaint to the OCR, the filing states, the supervisor required the chaplain to send a Microsoft Teams message when she started and finished each workday – a level of monitoring not required in her prior 15 years and not imposed on her peers.

Disability accommodation, then termination

In December 2024, according to the complaint, the chaplain requested a disability accommodation for a knee condition – Advanced Fourth-Stage Patellar Chondromalacia – that limited her mobility. She provided medical documentation recommending remote work until February 2025.

Northwestern denied the request, the filing alleges, granting just one week of remote work and then requiring her to come in during that week anyway.

On January 8, 2025, the complaint states, the university’s ADA compliance office confirmed the chaplain’s medical documentation was complete and said it would finalize the accommodation with her supervisors. Two days later, Northwestern fired her.

Sacred texts in a box

The complaint’s account of the termination is striking. The filing alleges the university barred the chaplain from returning to her office to collect personal belongings, including sacred religious texts she had used in her chaplaincy. According to the complaint, university staff “unilaterally packed up her belongings outside her presence and indiscriminately threw her sacred texts in a box, and in so doing, mishandled and desecrated them, knowing the significance, meaning and impact this would have.”