Monem Salam: 
Welcome to Halal Money Matters, sponsored by Saturna Capital. I’m Monem Salam. And this is a very special episode. It's our 50th one. That means I've probably been doing this for about close to four years now. It's been a great journey.

So what we're going to do today is the second part series. You know, we take the 401(k) matter into in a completely different and another angle, about how to get your halal funds into your 401(k). In this case, what we're done is, I'm interviewing, Haaris Syed, who filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County with the help of Zeba Huq. I'm really excited to talk to them about their story of how he Haaris went four years without taking any of his generous reserve retirement matches, and how instead of giving up, he kept pushing and pushing Los Angeles County to be able to offer him an alternative based on religious accommodation. So Haaris Syed is a longtime public defender with Los Angeles County. And Zeba Huq is a civil rights attorney who at the time worked with him through Stanford's Religious Liberties Clinic. It's a really interesting inspiring story, very practical conversation. Let's get started.

So welcome, Haaris and Zeba, to Halal Money Matters. I'm really excited to have it. I've virtually never had two guests before, so this is going to be really, really great to do this. But thank you so much for joining.

Zeba Huq:
Thanks for having us.

Monem Salam:
So, know, for our listeners, know, last time we actually spoke about putting, you know, an Islamic investment option onto your 401(k). And we gave an example of one company, GM, General Motors, that they use one TAC to be able to go and actually appeal for it. And eventually they ended up getting a brokerage option within their 401(k). Today, what I want to do is talk about maybe a different avenue to do that. It might not be something everybody wants to do, but it is an option that's available. So I wanted to make this more into a story. So, Haaris, why don't you kind of start us off, if you don't mind, and really tell us exactly what happened from the very beginning. And then I might just jump in and ask questions. Zeva, feel free to jump in as well.

Haaris Syed:
Yeah. So I went to law school, didn't, you know, again, believe not to take loans that bear interest, right? So I saved up money before I went to law school. When I got there, I was able to pay part of my tuition, took loans that don't accrue interest until six months after you graduate. Once I became six months after I graduated, fortunate enough to be able to borrow from family and several different family members to pay off those loans completely. But then I had to a job to pay them back really quickly. So I worked in business litigation. Uh, so, um, it was a nice paying job, but, um, in a year's time, I was able to pay back almost all the loans to family and friends. only had my brother left and he said he could wait. And so I ended up becoming a public defender. So took less than half my salary to become a public defender. And, uh, because it felt like more meaningful work and that was in 2005. And so as soon as I, and I've been, I've been a public defender for 20 years now. But as soon as I joined, you have an option to join the 401(k) plan. They also have a 457b plan, which is a thrift plan for government employees. there's both and you get matching dollar for dollar. Employer match dollar for dollar up to 4 % on each plan of your salary. So it becomes a sizable amount. So I looked into it and it turned out every investment auction that they had in their plans had bonds in them, let alone impermissible stocks as well.

Monem Salam:
Which is pretty much typical for most 401(k) plans that are out there. So I mean it was not something different, but yeah, go on. I just wanted to kind of mention that.

Haaris Syed:
Yeah, it wasn't different even for my prior employer, right? That I had in a private side, similar problem. But now here I am in the government and thinking, okay, I tried, I looked into it. I couldn't figure out an option. So then I just kind of gotten it there. The public defender job, the stereotypes fit, it does become overwhelming and you do get a lot of cases. And so I was just kind of like, kind of stay above water. And so I wasn't thinking about my own finances. but fast forward about maybe five years later in 2010. You know, I just had my second child. I was looking into buying a home, through Islamic financing. And I just started looking into my finances, a little bit more seriously. And then I realized, and around that time, I learned that the County had started offering. and I work in Los Angeles and so I worked for the Los Angeles public affairs offices. So it's, I'm a County employee for Los Angeles. But around that time, LA County had started a self-directed brokerage account auction for their deferred compensation plans. So when I found out about that, I'm like, okay, sign me up. I drove to the distance city in LA that actually had the plan coordinator. I went there and it said, please, I want to sign up today. And so they said, okay, great, but you first need to meet the threshold of each plan first. And so each plan, the 401(k) and the 457 require $25,000 first. And anything above the $25,000, you can then invest in a self-corrected brokerage account. And a theory is for that, that it's kind of like a county playing mother, not wanting you to, for unexperienced investors to blow away their entire retirement, like you may be gambling in the market perhaps. That's part of it. And the second part is that they want to be able to recover their third party administrator fees and the county administrative fees that they have for operating the plan. And so there was this $25,000 limit, but I can't, that's my problem is I can't invest in those plans to get to 25,000 in the first place to then go to then use what's after that. So what I did is I approached the county. I went to their PAC meetings, their plan administrative committee. They put me on calendar for finally in February of 2011. And I presented my issue. In fact, as I was walking up the steps to get to the meeting, I ran into another Muslim person that I knew, and I told him why I was there. And he said, I have the same problem. And so he came along with another employee. He said, and there's several of us have the same problem. And we're actually on the floor above where your hearing is taking place. And so I'm like, okay, why don't you come too? So they came also as they sat down. And so when I presented my issue, you know, the path board members were receptive, they listened to the concern, and they took it under consideration essentially. A year, fast forward a year later, I finally got word that they said that they put it on the agenda again. So exactly a year later, February of 2012, they said that they couldn't make the accommodation and it gave several reasons. But essentially that, you know, getting rid of the requirement of $25,000 would prevent them from getting their administrative fees from everybody. They, and putting a new plan, which I'd suggested to them, just put a new plan in place, you know, like and I suggested Amana Mutual Funds. I was talking to Oweis Dada-Boy at the time. And I continued talking to him through Amana. And he actually gave me the folders through Amana Mutual Funds that I could actually present to each of the board members when I went there the year before. so, but they said that, you know, it was just cost prohibitive for them to put in a new plan because there's not that many participants for this very narrowed type of plan. And they didn't want to make a social equitable plan because then it's almost like a slippery slope. if everybody comes in with wanting their own individual plans, then it becomes, have the cost of administering, it's difficult. So they looked into different options and said it's just not feasible for them.

Monem Salam:
So let me stop you for a second. So in this process, so far it's only you and the PAC, right? You didn't get other, you didn't do a rally cry for other Muslims and so on. This was between you and them?

Haaris Syed:
Okay. Yeah, this is just between me and them. And then I said, well, they've been at the end of the meeting. They said, you know what? They'll look to see if it's, do they have to make a religious accommodation? Right. And then I, gave me word, I don't know, a while later saying, I guess their attorney said, no, they don't have to. So then I can bury my head in the sand again. Uh, and just got busy with work again. Um, and then I, um, in like 2018, you know, This is now what 13 years into the office. finally started taking your finances again. I finally got my, they put me in a supervisory position, training new lawyers and the commute alone gave me spit time to think about these things. So I started looking at finances and putting everything in order financially in place. I started reading all these books, like personal finance stuff. but they all start with taking, get reading of your debt. Wasn't a problem for me. I had savings that I needed to use. And so, and then, and the first thing then is like, if you have your employer has a match, take the match, right? Exactly. Up to the maximum of the maps, the employer were doing. So all these books are saying this and I just can't do it. So then I thought there's got to be a solution to this. So I reached out to the County again, but I also decided there's someone nationally has to have this problem. So I've put out a feeler to a normal, which is the national association of Muslim lawyers. had a list serve. so Muslim lawyers around the country.

Monem Salam:
take advantage of it.

Haaris Syed:
Someone's got to this issue. So I put it out there to see if anybody can respond about that. And instead I became the Debbie Downer and because all of a sudden people started responding to me to like, Oh my God, I didn't know I was doing something sinful. I'm doing the same thing. And so, um, and, and I'm not getting any encouraging things. I've just became like this, uh, you know, uh, and it wasn't not my intention at the time, but one person from New Jersey, one lawyer just kind of just, replied very quickly with a one-liner and gave me a link to New York State Bar, sorry, New York State Deferred Compensation Board, making a religious exemption. And so I'm like, that was encouraging. So I actually immediately called New York State Deferred Compensation Board and got in touch with people and they gave me some information on the phone and it was encouraging. And they had just done it in 2014. So this is like four years before. As I find out four years after they've done it. And I get their information. So then I'm like, okay, I reach out to the county and the county and I tell them about New York State additional information. And they get back to me saying, you know, because of system limitations, we just can't, we can't do this. And they just, I think they use a prior rationale that they looked into in detail before, right? So then I'm like, okay, I think litigation might be the option. So I reached out to care national Council on American Islamic Relations. And they put me in touch with someone local in Los Angeles. And that person put me in touch with Zeba and Stanford Law School's Religious Liberties Clinic. And from then on, they were instrumental in helping.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, so one thing I want to ask is if you can jump in and really kind of explain as we're going forward, what is this religious exemption that Haaris just mentioned? Can you just briefly?

Zeba Huq:
Yeah, so I mean, just generally in civil rights law in the area of religion, employers are required to accommodate employees for their religious practice, their religious observance, unless it would be what's usually called an undue hardship. There's been a lot of movement on what that means in the last few years, but this is common, right? And in my practice, a lot of what I would do is represent people who needed know, time off for their Sabbath on Saturday or needed a dress or grooming accommodation, like needed to wear a beard and it was against the rule. And so, you know, what happens is that someone asks for that accommodation and the employer is required to evaluate under both federal and state law whether they can provide that accommodation or not. So in Harness's case, he was asking for this accommodation in an area in which I think is not a typical area that employers are usually used to. And so, and he did it over and over again, right? 2005, 2011, 2016, again in 2018. And when his accommodation request and the whole story came in front of our desk, it was a really interesting case. And it seemed like particularly when we knew, I think in isolation, it was like, yeah, this seems really difficult. I certainly am not a finance expert or employment benefits expert, but the fact that New York had done it, and styled it particularly as an exemption, essentially an accommodation, because what New York had was they had a self-directed brokerage option that would allow most employees to invest with a $10,000 threshold. But if you filled out a form or an affidavit describing your religious beliefs, or I don't even remember exactly what that form was, they would drop that threshold down to 500. And that 500 threshold, from what we understand, I'm not sure that that was publicly available goes to fees, administrative costs, et cetera, right? Which is a huge difference for someone like Haaris or other Muslims who believe that they shouldn't be dealing in interest or in impermissible funds. Well, when you have something like 500, you still are dealing in that for $500 potentially, but it's a lot easier to perhaps donate a certain amount to offset it, right? Versus the $25,000 limit that Haaris was looking at. And of course, he had two investment options and most of his peers invested in both of them. So that was actually $50,000 that it would require of him. So when he came to us, we started looking deeper into the issue. And of course, like I said, my team was sort of experts. we work, you know, we're a team of lawyers and we work with students. And the program is really intended to support individuals like Haaris trying to live their faith on the job or in other contexts.

Monem Salam:
Mmm.

Zeba Huq:
But we also teach students through the practice of law. So we teach them how to be lawyers through actually litigating. And so I don't know, you probably met with like 10 different students who are the course of this litigation. But basically, we really had to figure out, do we have a viable legal claim here? And we didn't think that we did, but we didn't really understand the employment benefits context and some of the finance aspects of it. So we actually partnered with an employee benefits attorney who told us, You know, Los Angeles County is a huge employer, right? Like one of the largest employees in the country, much less the state. So they have a lot of leverage with their third party administrators, right? So it's not, know, sometimes if you have a smaller employer, maybe that's going to be really difficult because, you know, the third party who's administering these funds is just going to say, we're not going to allow more flexibility to you. But Los Angeles County really had more sway. The arguments that they presented, I Haaris talked about it in the 2012, sort of their responses to his accommodation request. They basically said that the 25,000 threshold was required to collect administration and third party administrator fees. But I mean, from what we could tell, those fees were less than $100 a month or something like that. It was very low. So that didn't really hold water. They argued the threshold was necessary to allow.

Haaris Syed:
It's like $5 on one plan and like $8 on the other for, you know, for a month.

Zeba Huq:
Yeah, it was something minimal. then they also argued that the threshold was required to allow only knowledgeable investors to enroll in this brokerage window and the self-directed fund, which of course, you know, having a certain amount of money doesn't actually really indicate whether you're a knowledgeable investor or not. They also argued that it would be, I think Horace mentioned that this is really just for a few participants and perhaps this sort of fear of it being a slippery slope that everyone's going to come and ask for their own know, core option, because we can talk about the brokerage window, but there's also the option of them adding sort of a core option to their lineup, right? They had, you know, three options or so, and they said, well, that's, you know, going to be a problem. And they also said that it would, you know, adding a core option would be confusing and lead to ineffective investor behavior, whatever that means. So a lot of these things, when we talked to the expert that we brought in on employee benefits, she was saying, look, this is very sort of paternalistic behavior, right? They're sort of saying, We just really want to control who gets to self-direct through a brokerage window and direct their funds the way they want to. We want to be able to control most employees' investment for their retirement funds. And of course, you may know more about this than I do, but of course there's certain fiduciary responsibilities of these plant administrators in order to make sure that they're shepherding and caring for those funds in a responsible way, right? So that...like we may have seen in other instances where pensions are sort of somehow whittled down because of bad administration. So there was this fiduciary duty argument that kind of kept coming up. again, our employment benefits expert was telling us, hey, this is not, know, there is, of course there is a fiduciary duty, but the fiduciary duty does not require a $25,000 threshold. And of course, over here we have New York, which is showing us an example of the fact that they have been able to successfully implement for, I don't know, it five plus years before we really got involved, a plan in which you could accommodate a religious employee.

Monem Salam:
This is a common one that I hear, which is about the fact that, if we open up for Muslims, this will open up the floodgates for any religious person to come in and say whatever they wanted to be, have their favorite fun to be in there. Is that a legitimate argument? How did you argue against that aspect of it, or did you?

Zeba Huq:
So first of all, slippery slope arguments are always a logical fallacy, right? Like you can't deny, you can always sort of deny one person by saying, oh, if we give you this, then everyone else is going to come along and ask for it. So that's sort of problematic under the law as well. It's generally not regarded as an argument that's credited and a valid argument. But I think that argument really only applied to the idea of a core fund, right? And it is a little more challenging, think, perhaps, you know, there are some employers who maybe have a choice of maybe you have 10 different funds or, you know, there's a large variety. I think in LA County's case, they had three funds and they were very, you know, they were more narrow. They weren't specialized in any way. So I think that that argument for them seemed compelling to say, well, if we're going to add this chariot compliant fund, then what about, you know, the environmental group that's going to say they want this, et cetera. Well, first of all, my response to that as well, you know, the law, both statutory as well as constitutional law, has special protections for religion, number one. So other groups aren't necessarily going to have the same rights to this as you would as a protected class, you know, as a religious person. But number two, the other option was, you know, we can talk about core funds, but the easiest way in some ways to allow for this accommodation is just to make it easier for your employees to self-direct their funds through a brokerage window and access directly the Sharia compliant funds like Amana or others. although both of them were presented in our litigation and our lawsuits, so we did end up, I'm not sure if we said, but we actually took on HRS as a client and we sued the county and the plan administrators for religious discrimination and non-accommodation under federal and state statutes as well as the constitution. And then we also alleged violations of fiduciary duty under state and local law.

Monem Salam:
And so me stop here for a second. Just before we go further into this, just one quick question. So Haaris was working for a governmental institution, was LA County. It was doing that. And a lot of employees are working for private companies. As we're going down this road, does it matter really whether it's a public versus a private institution or what this could apply generally, you think, to everybody?

Zeba Huq:
So the only piece that really matters is that we had a constitutional claim because it was a government, right? The constitution applies to the government in particular, but these statutory laws, particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act or California Fair Employment and Housing Act, these are all statutory laws that apply to private employers as well. So we had kind of an extra bow in our quiver because we had the constitutional argument as well. But there are things that are broadly available to private employees. Private employees are also required to abide by these civil rights laws and accommodate religious employees. So these claims fell under sort of two buckets, which was the religious discrimination or non-accommodation. And then the other bucket was the fiduciary duty, the idea of a fiduciary duty. Now, that wasn't really my wheelhouse. That was our co-counsel, who was the employment benefits expert. But essentially, in order to start any litigation as an employee, you have to first go to administrative agency and file there. So that's really where we started. And Haaris, he's probably a pretty atypical employee who is willing to engage in this process for a few reasons. One, he had this really strong and unwavering belief that he could not invest in non-Sharia compliant options and over the course of 15 years had consistently asked, been rejected and still stayed true to his beliefs at huge personal disadvantage because he was losing out on actually 8 % of match from both of those funds. Basically his tax deferred savings, the employer matching and investment gains over the course of 15 years, which is a

Monem Salam:
It's quite a bit. mean, it's quite a of money. Like you're talking about like your 401(k) and your 457 both growing and you're not being able to save on the taxes for putting the money in all of those things really compound. But before I go on Ziba, just one quick question for us. I mean, I know that in this particular case, Haaris, you decided to go the litigation route, right? And I'm partly has something to do with the fact that you're a lawyer and doing that. But, but a lot of people, if I, if I told somebody, Hey, why don't you sue your employer? For something that you want, they're going to be like, my God, I'm going to get fired. I'm like, I don't want to do that. So what was your thought process in doing this? Were you ever nervous about going down this road or those things?

Haaris Syed:
Los Angeles County is, I mean, it's a large governmental agency, right? And so I'm just one, the public defender's office is one small agency within this big umbrella. And then also the fact that, you know, as public defenders, we're fighters anyways, right? We're fighting the government every day in court. Although we're government employees paid by the government, we're kind of paid by the government to poke it in its eye every day. so, It being a contrarian is not unusual in that sense. And, but, but we have, but with Zaba and the Sanford law schools, religious liberties clinic, had to go to a complaint process first internally. when we did it with the EEOC, all of sudden I was getting, they set up a meeting with me for the county policy of equity. Basically, you know, yeah, I had to go through the internal processes first, but, I, first off, I didn't know why I was being investigated. I'm like, I didn't do anything to anybody. What happened? And so when I showed up, I realized, this is my own complaint about religious discrimination because, with the EEOC. was once you pass it in, it had no bearing by my office. was just like check the box for them and move the paper forward to the EEOC.

Monem Salam:
And then Ziba, from your perspective, if somebody did decide to do this from a private employee perspective, is there any protections for them from not being fired while they're going through this or not?

Zeba Huq:
There's absolutely civil rights protections against employer retaliation for making claims at the EEOC or in other contexts. But the practical reality is exactly what you said, Manim, which is that most employees are not going to be willing to sue their employer. There's just too much risk involved. that's also the second point, which you also touched on. So the first point was that He was really extraordinary as a plaintiff in terms of the fact that his sincere belief was so strong for 15 years, he had lost out on really hundreds of thousands of dollars of compensation and gains. But second, the fact that he was an attorney and as he just described the public defender, he sort of had a confidence in the system, right? And the fact that his employer was governmental, I think also changes some of the stakes and some of the approach, right? As a governmental entity, there's generally a lot of attorneys you know, on staff who are very conscious of their obligations under, you know, the law, including the constitution. So I think it was dealt with in a way that was quite professional. And they took it seriously without retaliation. I don't think Haaris really felt any retaliation from it. But it's not, you know, irrational for employees to be frightened to engage in this kind of challenge to their current employer, whether in the private...or in public service because it's not easy to do that. Like I said, was exceptional. But once we went down that path, we started at the agency, is, that's a whole process. I think it took maybe even over a year or close to a year to go through that process. And then after that, we were able to file in federal court. And to be honest with you, the negotiations with Haaris's employer in the county started from day one, essentially, right? Like once we filed with at the EEOC and at the administration, there was definitely, know, the attorneys, you know, came out of the woodwork and they, you know, we started those conversations. But of course, you know, if you could just make this happen by talking to your employer, then we would be in a very, in a much better place. And it is great when there are employers who are receptive and employees are able to organize and bring this change about short of litigation. That's the goal, right? That's the

Zeba Huq:
best thing that you can do or that that's the best situation.

Monem Salam:
And did you, from this point on, you now think to yourself, oh, I'm sure there's other Muslim employees that are in the LA County. Should we get all of those people together and do this? I don't want to use the term, you know, like what do you call that thing when everybody does it together? Like a class action? Like a class action? Or is it something you were like, no, no, this is very particular?

Zeba Huq:
I the issue is that, of course, when we're litigating on behalf of one particular client, it's for the benefit of that client. But we also just recognize that once we had found Haaris and we had his case, to get the county to move on it was going to benefit all. I mean, it was very unlikely that they were going to provide an accommodation for him that wasn't going to be more broadly available to other employees. So we didn't really have to go down the route of a class action. But once we started litigating this and brought it to the administrative agency, the EEOC, and then we brought it to federal court, there were conversations going. And this is not uncommon in litigation to have parallel streams of litigating, but also to be talking and trying to a consensus and trying to find a solution. I think there was a lot of. I think on the back end, and Horace may remember some of this more than I do, but there was also a lot of just logistical challenges, hurdles, and sort of trying to make it work and sort of where the money goes and how to make it accessible and how to structure it. And of course, you're in this huge public entity that doesn't make change easily. So it did take a few years. And so the litigation went on for some time. They challenged our lawsuits twice, tried to kick in, kick us out of court to get our case dismissed. And we were able to argue against that and keep the litigation going. And then we did enter sort of a discovery phase in which there was an exchange of information that's sort of like the typical progression of a lawsuit. We ended up going down that route and continuing the negotiations and eventually the negotiations came to a place where they were willing to compromise and bring about an exemption similar to New York State.

Monem Salam:
So they actually offered to settle the case.

Zeba Huq:
Generally, negotiations and settlements are often confidential. But because LA County is a public entity, those settlements are publicly available. But there really two aspects that we were looking for Haaris to be able to be made whole. One was to get this exemption, which was the option to be able to invest in both of the plans that were available to him in a way that was at least much more compliant with his religious beliefs than the $25,000 threshold, right? So bringing that down.

Monem Salam:
So do you know what it is now, Deli Kim?

Zeba Huq: 
I believe they brought it down to $500 and Yeah, I mean Horace can can Can confer sure? But but the other piece so the other piece of that though in addition to sort of what we would call injunctive relief So some sort of solution to the problem that we were raising is also money right money damages or you know making him whole from what he had lost now that

Monem Salam:
Similar to New York, guess.

Zeba Huq:
you know, that ended up being an interesting conversation to have, right? Because, you know, they didn't want to have to give him money. mean, no one ever really does. But we had to basically argue that he had lost out on a lot of compensation. And to be honest with you, the math was quite challenging. I won't even get in, get into that. But essentially,

Monem Salam:
Luckily you're at Stanford so you have many math people.

Zeba Huq: 
Yes, we had other people we kind of put the students on that we're like who wants to try to figure this out because you they're sort of You know, what are the you know, estimate the gains, right? I mean we had obviously, know, Horace had kind of indicated that you know, his interest was really to To invest in a monofund. So we had the history of the you know, the amount of fund over those years, etc but basically We were able to get him a lump sum payment that actually the payment didn't go to him directly. It went to the funds, right? That were evenly distributed between the two funds. The plans themselves, because that's what he was looking for, essentially, right? He wasn't looking for some sort of cash payout. It was to be able to invest in these funds and to get back. And ultimately, you what he was able to get was was still a fraction of what he lost out on. But Mashallah, you know, I mean, Haaris was just so strong in his beliefs that for him, it wasn't, you know, yeah, he lost out on it, but that was what he

Monem Salam:
To the plans themselves.

Zeba Huq:
He preferred to be steadfast in his faith and his beliefs and practices and not engage in interest and impermissible investing and instead just go ahead and work. And finally, it did pay off. That's great. Probably almost more than 15 years after he started as a public defender.

Monem Salam: 
So, and that case that you were talking about right now with the religious exemption and also New York, is this something that can be used in other states and or federal or is that something you you can place and say they did it we should also or?

Zeba Huq:
I mean, that's exactly what we did, right, in part. And that in and of itself wasn't necessarily, you know, that wasn't going to make it happen, but it was a really, it's a really good argument, right? And so now we know New York State has it, LA County has it. I think, you know, we knew that, I know that there's a lot of private employers that have options, whether that is, you know, the brokerage window, the self-directing option, or a core fund perhaps option. I think that the New Jersey Public University system also has a mana as a core fund. So there are a lot of options out there and a lot of employers that have made this available. absolutely anyone who's trying to get this option for themselves at their current employer should absolutely be pointing to LA County, New York State, New Jersey Public Universities and all of the private employers that do this and say, hey, if these people can do this, asking the question of why can't you?

Monem Salam:
Yeah. And from your perspective, having gone through this, when an employee goes to their employer and says, really want this, is it better argument to make just give me the brokerage option and I can use myself? Or is it a better option to say, look, I want this core fund that has that in there? Because what I've also had feedback for those, when we did the study about 250, roughly out of the Fortune 500 actually do have a brokerage account. However, that being said, there's still people who say, oh no, no, no. If we open up the brokerage, people are just going to invest in something they don't have any idea about and they're going to lose all their money and they're going to get a lawsuit on their hands. So there is that fear amongst those others that haven't done it. So what have you found to be better?

Zeba Huq:
The thing about having the brokerage friend option is that it really allows for, well, first of all, if you look at New York and LA County, it's limited to people who have a religious belief that really requires them to invest in things that accord with their religious belief. And from my understanding, and this was some of the conversations we had sort of once the option had been in place, because we were in touch with LA County, it took some time to implement it all. We understand that there were people who non-Muslims as well who are taking advantage of this option, You people who had other religious beliefs and wanted to invest in things in accordance with their beliefs. of course, you know, you're always going to have an employer that talks about, well, we don't want you to, you know, you know, whittle away your retirement savings. But by nature of a religious exemption, you're already limiting it to a much smaller group of people who have it available, right, to them. So in terms of reducing that threshold and making it a smaller amount and also, I think like we mentioned before, just because you have more money doesn't actually make you more sophisticated investor. So it's kind of based on a fallacy, idea that, well, if we let you self-direct. Well, that's already happening. People are already self-directing their retirement funds. So in some ways, sure, it does seem like there's less barriers, and an employer may be more open to that. But I think the idea of implementing a core fund seems like it's a system-wide, it's kind of a more involved process. There may be a lot of stakeholders that have to approve it and that may take more work versus lowering a threshold for a brokerage account is a little more accessible. Now, what I will say though is I think it really depends on your employer. you know, I don't, again, this is not, this is like my one and only Sharia compliant retirement investment litigation that I've been involved in. Of course, I learned a lot through it, but it seems to me that, for instance, if you look at, again, I don't know much about it, maybe you know more, is that if you look at the New Jersey public university lineup, they decided to add a monofund. So perhaps maybe that's because they have a really large percentage of Muslims as employees. Or also it may be that they offer a lot of options, right, as core options.

Monem Salam: 
And that's what it is, right? So what they do in New Jersey, the public school system or the universities is that they have multiple different plans. So Fidelity, VOYA, all these other different plans. And so each of these plans is competing for the employee to sign up with them rather than with another one. And so what VOYA decided to do was actually say, we're going to offer these funds in the plan so we can go after the Muslim employees that are at. It was a very smart thing to do. And, really it's worked out pretty well. It took them a while, don't get me wrong, but it did, it did end up really helping them as far as being able to promote their plan and stuff.

Zeba Huq: 
But that's an example of why, for instance, in that context, the core fund was really a better option. And it sounds like it, mean, I'm not sure how much lobbying was done by employees, but it sounds like it was actually just a savvy business decision to try to get more people to invest in that particular fund. So I think that you just have to, as any employee looking to do this, you have to see what's the best option, but you can also present both options to any employer and give them sort of, look, there's multiple ways that you can accommodate Muslims. And the approach that we took to even in the litigation itself was to try to sort of say, look, look, look, you know, the county should want to be a welcoming place to people of all backgrounds, all faiths, right? And this is a way, you know, to not only support your Muslim employees, but also to continue to recruit, you know, a diverse workforce. So, you know, I think it's always best to sort of approach it from a problem solving collaborative, that collaborative approach is going to go a lot farther than a more adversarial one. Of course, this is coming from the lawyer who litigated and sued Horace's employer on his behalf, but ultimately sometimes it does require litigation to push an employer over the edge. And I don't foresee a whole lot of employees taking that route, but did. Horace was able to do that for a number of reasons that we discussed before, and it was successful.

Monem Salam:
So now as the current plan stands right now, do they still have a very high minimum and then you have to get a religious exemption or is it now across the board that everybody has a low minimum?

Haaris Syed:
It's you have to ask for the religious exemption. There's a form that you just fill out and you submit it. then it's, it's not that it takes a couple of weeks to process. That's about it.

Monem Salam:
Okay, good. And then how, how, how has it been so far in the planet? Have you gotten other Muslims or come up to you and say, Hey, you know, thanks for doing this or have, how have you been ever promote this to other LA County employees? that this is happening.

Haaris Syed:
Yeah, actually, actually, just to let you know, like when I first approached that Great West or, you know, like the plant administrator here signed me up for the self-directed brokerage account and I couldn't do it. I became the go-to person. Any Muslim that asked this question to them, they're like, go talk to Haris. so I was like, yeah, so I would get emails from other people asking, hey, any update, any update? And so, so I... So to answer that question, some people, yes, that were involved with it or like kept in touch, they benefited from it. But oddly, or maybe it's not so odd actually, is that it's actually benefited a lot of non-Muslims, right? Because there's other people of different faiths that have actually benefited from this as well. Actually, I think predominantly it's people of other faiths that are actually benefiting from this.

Monem Salam:
That's awesome. No, I mean, I mean just the numbers game would tell you that other people would benefit more, right? Just because of the I mean how many how many other faiths there are relative to the Muslim population like

Haaris Syed: 
But it's basically unknown and we even with the by the county because the county didn't really promote it all that much. It hasn't really been advertised. Although they're not trying to hide it right I mean if you have but if you have to go to self directed brokerage account page on empower and look at it and then you can see there's an attestation.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, you have to fill out an application or do other steps involved or not involved in the core fund strategy. That's definitely the case. So for both of you, I can ask this question. What advice would you have for an employee who's probably facing the same kind of issues?

Haaris Syed: 
Well, don't give up. There's always options. When I was going through the process of like learning about personal finance, was interesting. My brother was in his private firm, a private company as a computer software programmer and thought it was hopeless to get his employer to make an accommodation. And I said, no, they should be able to for these reasons. He approached his employer. They immediately made the accommodation and started getting his matches. This is before I did it for myself and I was helping and it turned out like I talked to other people and there was avenues for them to do it with their private employers, right? Ways to do the self-corrected brokerage account for them. It was easier for them. But then I'm like, there's got to be way for me to do it too. And if New York State did it and Los Angeles County, as big as it is, was able to do it, I don't see why others couldn't do it. New York said it was actually quite easy for them to do and same thing for Los Angeles. It wasn't that it was hard. It was just that it was time intensive because you need people to reprogram, you know, their system and get all the process in place. But at a fundamental level, it's not difficult.

Monem Salam:
Is that the resistance to change kind of a thing? Wait, this is not a yeah inertia. Exactly. So how about you, Zeba? What advice would you have?

Zeba Huq:
You know, I think, like I mentioned before, most people are not going to sue their employer. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend that. Even if you're willing to do that, is costly. It takes a very long time. I would say, number one, try to organize. I mean, you were asking some questions along this line, Monim, about whether other people kind of came on board. But I think if you're trying to organize within your company, try to get allies, whether it's other Muslims, whether it's people of other faith traditions who are looking for similar options, right? And then approach the employer with a clear ask, with a strategy, right? a way that pitch it to them in a way that is good for them too, right? I mean, obviously you're looking for a benefit for yourself in terms of the ability to practice your faith, but also receive valuable compensation. But I think making the case for why it is a good thing for them. And I know we're now in a world, this was in 2020. So then we were in a different world than we are now. know, DEI is now kind of like a bad word and we're not really using that as much. At that time, that was our approach. you know, employers are still looking to, you know, bring it, to be inclusive and to bring in great talent. And if you want to bring in good talent, know, there's, Muslims are, mashallah, amazing. I mean, you know, we saw it yesterday. The new mayor of New York City is a Muslim, but there's a lot of great talent out there. And basically, if you want to be an employer that they're looking at, well, this is a really great way to do that.

Monem Salam:
Yeah, I appreciate that. And also, Haris, from your perspective, looking back, I know you approached the LA County with the idea of, these are the amount of funds and this is the one I want, right? Would it have been better to be able to say, oh, I just want to be able to have a religious accommodation as a Muslim? Or was it better for you to say, this is the amount of funds and this is what I want in my portfolio? Well, how did you think about that? And what do you think you could have done better if you would have just said generally Islamic investing or no, it's better to have one fund that you're actually promoting.

Haaris Syed:
So I did both with them, right? I said, I actually, I presented as, can you make a socially conscious plan? You know, cause I didn't want to use the term Sharia compliant or sparing me off with something like that, right? But, there's no, there was really no need to say that stuff, but that's why I predict a folder from Amana Mutual Funds to say, look at like, this is an option that's available. If you want to just add it to your portfolio of plans and then it makes, then it's seamless. I could just invest in this one. So in hindsight, neither worked. But I think getting more options is helpful, mean, they can evaluate it and see which one is more feasible for them.

Monem Salam:
Okay. That's great. And then I'll ask, this interesting, both of you in California, because I know California was one of the first ones, but this is being adopted in other States as well. But they're actually, California now is requiring employee employers to offer an employee plan for even the smaller companies that are there. And that's catching on a little bit more in other States as well. And if that's the case, mean, this is great that I was able to have both of you on to be able to talk about like just another way that this was done. I do want emphasize, again, what Zeba, you mentioned is that, know, it's litigation is not the first choice, right? But it is something that's available as something in your quiver. And really you should go and negotiate with your employer and say, you know, this is what we really want. You do it as a team approach with other religious affiliations, other Muslims that are there and go together and say, we are all looking for this kind of thing. In fact, interesting in Microsoft, when I worked with them in 2000, early 2000s, that's what they had done. They basically work with other religious organizations, environmental organizations, other ones who say, look, none of these options in the core funds are available or good for me. If you open a brokerage, all of the people would be able to benefit from it. It's not just one area or another.

Haaris Syed:
Can add to that the county of Los Angeles throughout has been excellent. From the very beginning, even when I approached them and they said no, they took it seriously. They looked into it. They were actually fascinated. Board members approached me in that path meeting right afterwards and said, you know what, we never knew about this issue. Thanks for bringing it to our attention. Let's see if we can do anything. And so they took it and when they denied me a year later, one of them ran out to meet me in the hallway and said, hey, is there a de minimis amount of interest that's okay? And that alone...made me realize, wait, so they're still thinking about it. So the sincerity, and people really want to help and accommodate if they can.

Zeba Huq:
And I will say, mean, we worked less directly with county lawyers. They hired outside counsel for the litigation. But I will say, we had a great experience with those attorneys. I think that there was a willingness and an openness to working on the problem and trying to solve it. It took some time. There's inertia. There's challenges that have to be overcome. But that is not always the case. So a lot of the religious accommodation work that I did was also not only in the employment context where there would be private employers, but also public, but also in the prison context. I worked a lot with prisoner clients and in that context, government attorneys are not often very open to working with you and try to find a solution to someone who's trying to live their faith in prison. so, that goes a long way, but I do think that employers and their legal departments, especially I think looking at I think where the law is going and some of the legal developments, even what you described about the California law, I think that requires employees to invest in a 401(k). Is that correct?

Monem Salam: 
Employers to offer it and then or some kind of a retina

Zeba Huq:
Okay, well, there's that, but also just sort of the development of the standards under statutory law and things like that. Employers kind of have an increased sort of responsibility towards religious employees in order to really take these accommodation requests seriously and to really do their due diligence and understand can we provide this or not.

And so I think what people are going to be seeing hopefully is that when they approach their employers with this request that it's not just an immediate no. I mean, I think LA County did do its work, although to be fair, the arguments they presented were just not, you know, they didn't really withstand scrutiny to be shared, you know? But I think we're in a world too where the law has developed to a place where employers and their legal departments should be taking these requests pretty seriously and really trying to accommodate these individuals.

Monem Salam:
Listen, Haaris, thank you so much for taking the time. I think this has been really, really beneficial for a lot of reasons. think it's a continuation form. We talked about the private sector and doing it one way. This has been really helpful. One of the biggest things I got out of this was that there is religious accommodation. We just have to be able to really stand up and say, want this accommodation and how can my employer help me to be able to get there?

Haaris Syed:
Thank you. And thanks for having us. And I have to give a shout out to ZEBA and Stanford Law School. mean, absent for Stanford coming in and ZEBA coming in, was, I don't know how this would have happened.

Monem Salam: 
So maybe I zip after this, you can get a flood of emails saying, how do I? Are you still there at the Stanford Center?

Zeba Huq:
So I actually moved on from the clinic. And so I now support a different part of the law school. it was really an honor, I mean, representing Horace and other clients like him. mean, just like Horace, you have people who come with just this really, the sincerity of belief, right? And really just want to both be able to practice their religion and also work and make money for their family, right? It's what we all want. And so these are challenges that everyday people face on the job all the time. the clinic, there's others like Stanford's clinic, there's other lawyers who do this work and there's lawyers who don't focus on this but may be willing to take on this kind of work. it is important. It is important and it's, you know, I'm just really grateful that I was able to help Haaris and hopefully this does also help other people within LA County but also, you know, across the country who are trying to do the same thing for themselves.

Monem Salam:
Thank you so much, both of you.

Zeba Huq:
Thank you so much, Monem.

Monem Salam:
Thank you for listening to Halal Money Matters. If you like what you hear, please do rate us on the app stores and also leave us a review. It helps other people find us a lot easier.

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