From a Washington Post editorial

Safoorah Khan began work as a math teacher for the Berkeley, Ill., public schools in November 2007.

Nine months later, Khan, a Muslim, asked to be off the first three school weeks of December 2008 so that she could fulfill her religious duty to make a pilgrimage to Mecca.

School officials refused, saying they couldn't do without her at that time of the year.

Khan quit, took the trip and hired a lawyer -- and now the Obama administration has taken her side, filing a lawsuit against the Berkeley schools for religious discrimination.

According to the Justice Department's complaint, the school system "compelled Khan to choose between her job and her religious observance, practice, and/or belief ... thus forcing her discharge."

In so doing, the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is trying to show that the U.S. government will not tolerate unlawful discrimination against Muslims, which is laudable.

The question, however, is whether the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division is enforcing existing employment discrimination law -- or stretching it.

Civil rights law requires employers to reasonably accommodate their workers' religious beliefs or practices, as long as they don't impose more than a minimal burden on the employer's operations.

Common accommodations include permitting employees to wear religious headgear or arranging voluntary shift swaps with co-workers on the Sabbath.

Now, a court will have to examine what it would have cost the Berkeley schools, in money and inconvenience, to meet her request.

And it will have to determine why Khan, 29, absolutely could not wait to perform her once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage.

By backing Khan, the Obama administration may be striking a blow for civil rights and religious freedom, risking a polarizing controversy like the one over construction of a mosque near Ground Zero -- or both.

If only this could have been resolved without the cost and drama of litigation.