High Court Revives Religious Bias Case

The U.S. Supreme Court last week revived a discrimination lawsuit that accused Abercrombie & Fitch Co. of refusing to hire a Muslim woman because she wore a religious headscarf, the Legal Times reported.

In the case, Samantha Elauf applied for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch while wearing a religious headscarf, or hijab. The headscarf was not permitted under the company’s Look Policy, or dress code, and Elauf would have needed an accommodation. Abercrombie & Fitch did not hire Elauf because of the headscarf.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it unlawful for an employer to fail to reasonably accommodate such beliefs or practices unless doing so would inflict an undue hardship on the business.

The federal law protects job applicants from religious discrimination regardless of whether an applicant notifies the employer of a need for an accommodation.

The U.S. Supreme Court decision reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, which said that it was a job applicant’s or employee’s responsibility to provide notice to an employer.

The higher court disagreed, saying an employee need only show that his need for an accommodation was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision.

Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion that “an employer may not make an applicant’s religious practice, confirmed or otherwise, a factor in employment decisions.”

The dissenting vote in the 8-1 decision was from Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote that Abercrombie’s application of a neutral policy prohibiting caps did not meet the standard for “intentional discrimination.”

“Abercrombie refused to create an exception to its neutral Look Policy for Samantha Elauf’s religious practice of wearing a headscarf,” Thomas wrote. “In doing so, it did not treat religious practices less favorably than similar secular practices, but instead remained neutral with regard to religious practices.” S