A Maryland county and a Christian prison ministry have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by an imam barred from serving as a jail chaplain because he is Muslim.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced the $195,000 settlement for Edrees Bridges, who sued Prince George’s County and Prison Ministry of America in 2021 after learning chaplain supervisors were required to be Christian.
The settlement agreement includes Bridges’ appointment as a volunteer jail chaplain by the county and the ministry’s agreement to stop using religious tests for paid chaplains moving forward, CAIR said.
“Prison Ministry of America shall not use the Statement of Applicant’s Christian Faith, or any similar Statement of Faith, for positions of employment in jails or prisons under exclusive government contract,” according to the agreement filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.
Mirriam Seddiq
“The First Amendment protects all of us,” said John Fossum, staff attorney for the CAIR Legal Defense Fund, which represented Bridges along with Mirriam Seddiq with Seddiq Law Maryland.
Bridges’ 2023 motion for summary judgment described him as a special agent with the U.S. Capitol Police with a master of divinity degree focused on chaplaincy. In 2021, the Maryland National Guard listed the imam as a first lieutenant and the first Muslim chaplain in the organization’s history. The Office of the Chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives said Bridges offered the opening prayer to begin a legislative session in 2024.
“He was highly educated, deeply experienced and perfectly suited for the job,” Siddiq said. “A requirement of Christian faith for a position that serves no particular religion is a discriminatory religious test.”
Bridges previously had served as a volunteer at the Prince George’s County Jail when he sought to apply for a chaplain supervisor position in 2021. But he could not even apply because Prison Ministry America required candidates to sign statements committing to “a lifestyle of Christianity” if hired, according to the request for summary judgment.
“Prison Ministries of America, the contractor who advertised the position, claims the Statement of Applicant’s Christian Faith is optional. But on the face of the Statement, where it states that employees ‘are committed to a lifestyle of Christianity,’ not ‘might be committed,’ that’s not true.”
CAIR and Siddiq Law said the policy is a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“The Establishment Clause prohibits an official government religion. And the Free Exercise Clause prohibits discrimination against people of faith or particular faiths, including in government employment. Nor was there a need for a specifically Christian chaplain, as the chaplaincy supervisor would supervise religious programming at the jail for all religions.”
Bridges’ service as a chaplain was inspired by an encounter with a chaplain while serving with the U.S. Capitol Police, according to the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies.
“At that moment, it did something to me where I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ You know, we call it silence, but we are always hearing things. We’re always communicating. And I think it was that voice within, that voice of guidance that was driving me to where I need to be.”
Bridges added he was initially surprised to learn chaplaincy is not about promoting spirituality or winning converts.
“Chaplaincy is about looking within, learning how to deal with your trauma” and learning “how can you take those pieces and still make progress in life. Once you learn how to do that, you have the ability to partner with others as they are working through those things to discover, or rediscover, their purpose in life.”
Working at the Prince George’s County Jail was an especially powerful experience, he said. “I’m there for every human being — every human being — to journey with them.”