According to USA Today, "Nearly four years after the terrorist attacks, Muslim, South Asian and Arab-American employees continue to report discrimination on the job." While "the number of employees saying they've been discriminated against as a form of backlash because of the attacks has declined.... charges continue to come in, indicating that Arab-American and other workers still feel discriminated against."

Arsalan Iftikhar, national legal director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), states, "People are being called 'terrorist' at work.... People have been called Osama bin Laden, told they are going to mosque to learn how to build a bomb."

"Nearly 280 claims of discrimination in the workplace were received by CAIR in 2004." The most-common location for an alleged incident was government agencies.

Other data from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC):

• Discrimination relating to 9/11: "about 980 charges alleging post-9/11 backlash discrimination have been filed through June 11 since the 2001 attacks."
• Religious Discrimination: "From Sept. 11, 2001, through June 11, the EEOC received 2,168 charges of discrimination based on an employee's Muslim religion. That compares with 1,104 such charges in the same time span before the attacks."
• Relief: "The agency has obtained more than $4.2 million on behalf of employees alleging post-9/11 backlash."

Recent EEOC cases:

• "A lawsuit alleging the New York Plaza hotel and Fairmont Hotel Management discriminated against Muslim, Arab and South Asian employees was settled last month for $525,000. A 2001 lawsuit claimed that Plaza employees were called "terrorist," "Taliban" and "dumb Muslim." It also alleges that managers wrote "Osama" and "Taliban" instead of employees' names on key holders.
• "In March, upscale seafood restaurant Pesce agreed to pay $150,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging bias against the store's general manager. According to the lawsuit, a former co-owner openly speculated that the manager's Egyptian name and appearance were the reasons Pesce had seen earnings drop in the months after 9/11. The manager was fired. Pesce, which has since been sold to new owners, declined to comment.
• The EEOC filed a lawsuit last year against an MBNA subsidiary in Philadelphia claiming in part that offensive comments were made to Indian and black employees after 9/11, including an Indian employee who was called "Osama bin Laden." The case is pending. MBNA says there is no merit to the claim.