Former records clerk sues Oak Park for alleged discrimination, harassment 

A former records clerk for Oak Park is suing the city for alleged discrimination against her as a Muslim woman, as well as harassment and privacy violations, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Tammara Saloum, who is represented in her lawsuit by attorneys with the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-MI, alleged in the complaint that the harassment and discrimination she faced was “so pervasive and severe that it created a hostile working environment,” to the point that “it interfered with her ability to perform the functions of her job appropriately.” 

Specifically, Saloum alleges that her supervisor and multiple other city employees discriminated against her due to her Muslim faith, as well as harassing her with details of a previous sexual assault that the lawsuit says she was the victim of.

“Public employees should never have to choose between their livelihood and their right to be treated with dignity and respect,” Amy V. Doukoure, CAIR-MI lead staff attorney, said. “When an employee is allegedly subjected to religious hostility, sexual harassment, and the disclosure of deeply private information—and the employer has notice yet fails to take meaningful corrective action—the harm extends beyond one individual. Public institutions must be held accountable for ensuring that discrimination and harassment are not permitted to become part of the workplace culture.”

Brittany Toth, Oak Park’s director of communications, said in a written statement that the city takes all allegations regarding privacy, professionalism, workplace conduct, and discrimination very seriously.

“The City maintains a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination and expects all employees to adhere to the highest ethical and professional standards,” Toth said. “The City of Oak Park previously addressed allegations made by Ms. Saloum in a Michigan Department of Civil Rights Investigation. The Michigan Department of Civil Rights determined that there was insufficient evidence and dismissed Ms. Saloum’s complaint.”

Toth added that, as of Wednesday afternoon, the city had not been formally served with the lawsuit, and that they do not comment on pending litigation. 

Saloum’s complaint acknowledges the Michigan Department of Civil Rights complaint, which was filed in July 2025 and dismissed in February 2026 due to “insufficient evidence to proceed.”

Saloum began working for the city in June 2024, according to the lawsuit, and began reporting her complaints to the city’s human resources department in early May 2025. The complaint alleges that no substantive action to stop the discrimination or harassment was taken, and that by August 2025, the toll on her mental health was so severe that she went on extended medical leave. 

“There is something deeply painful about dedicating your career built around safety and protection, only to discover that you do not feel safe or protected within it yourself,” Saloum said in a press release from CAIR-MI. “My experience in Oak Park made me reconsider not only my career choices, but my trust in the system I had believed in. I entered this profession believing doing the right thing mattered. I left questioning whether I still belonged in it.”

Her supervisor, according to the complaint, “made a series of derogatory and discriminatory comments” regarding Saloum’s faith and her ability to perform her job duties while fasting for Ramadan, allegedly also saying in front of Saloum that “a lot of Islamics [sic] had caused problems in Oak Park.”

The city’s human resources department acknowledged, according to the lawsuit, that Saloum’s supervisor had been the subject of multiple prior discrimination complaints — but imposed no formal discipline and required only two days of training. 

“In total, the City took no action that was reasonably calculated to actually stop the discriminatory and harassing conduct,” the lawsuit states.

In addition to Saloum’s supervisor, one coworker in the city allegedly called imams “creepy and pedophile-like.”

Saloum, who the complaint states was the victim of a sexual assault while working for the Dearborn Police Department, alleges that her Oak Park supervisor accessed a secure police-records database to search for and then share details of Saloum’s assault with other employees of the city. That then allegedly led to further harassment from her coworkers specifically about the assault.

Michigan legal protections for victims “reflect a settled public policy: a sexual-assault survivor’s identity and connection to the assault are intensely private matters that should not be exposed, circulated, or used without legitimate need,” the lawsuit states.