A McDonald’s restaurant in Massachusetts likely served a Muslim child pork in an act of discrimination , a state agency recently ruled.
In 2021, Ghadir Alahmar, who wears a hijab — a traditional Muslim headscarf — visited a branch of the popular fast food chain in Chicopee, a medium-sized city in the greater Springfield metro area. There, she ordered a Filet-O-Fish sandwich for her 7-year-old son.
Alahmar, who also wears an abaya — a long Islamic dress — ordered the sandwich plain, according to a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in June 2022 . Instead, the family received a fish sandwich covered in bacon.
The lawsuit alleges McDonald’s employees “intentionally and maliciously discriminated against” her and her family “by adding bacon to a fish sandwich despite her explicit request for a plain sandwich, charging her for the bacon she had not ordered, and then, to make matters even worse, adding three to four times the amount of bacon that would normally be provided when a customer requests it.”