FRESNO, CA – A federal judge ordered Bally Total Fitness to pay $24,000 to a Sikh man who sued when the company denied him a job after asking if he was Muslim, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Wednesday.

According to a report in the Fresno Bee, Sukdev “Devin” Singh Dhaliwal applied for a sales job with one of Bally’s five Fresno, CA, fitness centers in 2004. An interviewer from Bally asked Dhaliwal, who was born and raised in California, about his religious and ethnic background. Bally then denied Dhaliwal a job and hired non-Sikh, non-Indian applicants with less experience, according to the commission.

The newspaper also reported that under the consent decree, Bally must pay Dhaliwal $24,000 in damages and provide training in equal opportunity hiring practices to managers at its Fresno locations.

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