United States | Religious discrimination

Dress codes

Can a Muslim woman be denied a job because of her headscarf?

Not much covering here
|WASHINGTON, DC

SAMANTHA ELAUF, a young Muslim woman, did well in her interview for a job at a children’s branch of Abercrombie & Fitch, a casual-clothing store, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. But when the interviewer told a manager about Ms Elauf’s black headscarf, she was instructed to lower the applicant’s “appearance” score and deny her the job. According to the company’s “look policy”, employees must align their dress with the “preppy look of the Ivy League” and must not wear “caps” or black clothing. In fact Abercrombie is best-known for the half-naked (but preppy) hunks that adorn its shopping bags.

Ms Elauf turned to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which sued the store on her behalf. A federal district court in Oklahoma ruled that in refusing to hire Ms Elauf because of her religious practice, Abercrombie had violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit Court held for the company. If Ms Elauf wanted a religious accommodation, the appeals court said, she should have asked for it.

On February 25th the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case. The chief justice, John Roberts, worried that the EEOC’s view would lead an interviewer to grill a bearded applicant with a “Middle Eastern appearance” about possible “religious reasons” for his facial hair while asking no other applicants about grooming. “It seems that your solution causes more problems,” he told the government’s lawyer.

The toughest question for the other side came from Justice Samuel Alito, author of a decision earlier this term protecting the right of a Muslim inmate to grow a beard. Imagine that “a Sikh man wearing a turban”, “a Hasidic man wearing a hat”, “a Muslim woman wearing a hijab” and “a Catholic nun in a habit” come in for an interview. In order to be accommodated, would these individuals have to say, “I’m dressed this way for a religious reason”? Abercrombie’s lawyer admitted that some “religious outfits” are “more obvious than others”. But the significance of Ms Elauf’s headscarf, he said, was “ambiguous”.

Putting the onus on employers without “actual knowledge” of applicants’ religious scruples would be “unadministrable”, the store’s lawyer argued, and would lead to stereotyping. The government’s lawyer disagreed: the interviewer just needed to explain the “look policy”, and ask applicants if they had trouble complying with it. Most of the justices seemed to sympathise with Ms Elauf. A decision is expected by the end of June.

This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Dress codes"

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