Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on February 25, 2015

Samantha Elauf outside the Supreme Court Wednesday. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Samantha Elauf outside the Supreme Court Wednesday.

At the U.S. Supreme Court, you know that it's going to be a hot argument when the usually straight-faced Justice Samuel Alito begins a question this way: "Let's say four people show up for a job interview ... this is going to sound like a joke, but it's not."

The issue before the court on Wednesday was whether retailer Abercrombie & Fitch violated the federal law banning religious discrimination when it rejected a highly rated job applicant because she wore a Muslim headscarf.

Alito's hypothetical continued this way: The first of the four applicants to show up at Abercrombie is a Sikh man wearing a turban; the second is a Hasidic man wearing a hat; the third is a Muslim woman wearing a hijab; the fourth is a Catholic nun in a habit. Now, Alito asked Abercrombie's lawyer: "Do you think that those people have to say, we just want to tell you, we're dressed this way for a religious reason? We're not just trying to make a fashion statement." Or, might we reasonably conclude that Abercrombie knows why they are dressed that way?

Not surprisingly, Abercrombie's lawyer fudged his answer.

The case before the court arose when Samantha Elauf, then 17, applied for a job at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa, Okla. She was interviewed by an assistant manager, given a high score and recommended for hiring. But the assistant manager alerted her superiors to the fact that Elauf wore a headscarf, telling them that she assumed the scarf was worn for religious reasons. Ultimately, the hiring recommendation went to a regional manager, who ordered Elauf's score downgraded because of the headscarf, and she wasn't offered a job.

Abercrombie defends its action, citing its so-called Look Policy, which bans caps and black clothing. Elauf's dress for the interview a T-shirt and jeans fit well with that policy, which is described as "classic East Coast collegiate style of clothing." But her headscarf did not fit at all. The policy does not allow caps, terming them "too informal for the image we project."

Abercrombie maintains that if Elauf wanted a religious exception allowing her to wear her headscarf, it was up to her to make the case at the time of her interview. Elauf responds that she didn't even know about the Look Policy, and that deliberately downgrading an otherwise highly rated applicant because of a religious practice violates the federal law banning religious discrimination in employment.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission agreed with Elauf. And on Wednesday, Deputy Solicitor General Ian Gershengorn told the Supreme Court that when an employer has reason to believe that an applicant will need a religious accommodation, that's enough to put the employer on notice and to trigger a conversation about whether a religious accommodation would be possible.

See more here:

High Court Leans Toward Religious Protection In Headscarf Case

Category: Hasidic
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