Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Muslim Woman Denied Job at Abercrombie & Fitch

Samantha Elauf on the steps of the Supreme Court in February, when her case was heard by the justices. (Photo: Corbis)

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Abercrombie & Fitch violated Title VII by refusing to hire a young woman who had applied to work at one of the mall retailer’s stores because she wore a hijab, the head scarf worn by some post-puberty Muslim women as a sign of modesty.

The Court, in an overwhelming 8-1 opinion, decided that Abercrombie’s “look policy” constitutes religious discrimination.

Samantha Elauf, then 17 years old, had worn her hijab to her interview with Abercrombie and received high marks in all areas of their standard evaluation. But the hiring manager was ultimately told by her manager not to offer Elauf a position because they believed she wore a headscarf for religious reasons, and would thus be doing so on a daily basis. Elauf had never disclosed or discussed her religious beliefs at any point in her interview, meaning that the managers at Abercrombie had simply assumed she was Muslim — and then failed to hire her because of it.

Protestors as the Supreme Court hearing in February. (Photo: Corbis)

When the case of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc. was heard before the Court in February, Justice Samuel Alito noted that Abercrombie had practiced religious discrimination by failing to hire  Elauf, who applied for the retail position back in 2008, since “Maybe she’s just having a bad hair day, so she comes in with a headscarf, but she doesn’t have any religious reason for doing it. Would you reject her for that? No. The reason she was rejected was because you assumed she was going to do this everyday, and the only reason why…is because she had a religious reason.”

Per SCOTUS Blog, today’s ruling shows that “The Court holds that to prevail in a disparate treatment claim, an applicant need show only that his need for accommodation was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision, not that the employer had knowledge of his need.”

The majority opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who said, ““A request for accommodation … may make it easier to infer motive, but it is not a necessary condition of liability.”

The lone dissenting justice was Clarence Thomas, who expressed in his dissent that the “mere application” of a “neutral policy” such as Abercrombie’s look policy could not be seen as discrimination.

Between this ruling and the Court’s ruling in March against UPS in regards to pregnancy discrimination in the workforce, the Supreme Court has taken a firm stance this session on the topic of various forms of workplace discrimination based on physical appearances.

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