Religious freedom in the workplace...including Abercrombie & Fitch

There is a lawsuit pending in Oklahoma against the Abercromibe & Fitch because it is possible that the company denied employment to a 19 year old muslim woman who, consistent with her observance of Islam, wears a hijab, or headscarf. You can read all of the details of the case in this Time article. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), who is representing the 19 year old, asserts that if the store did in fact refuse employment to this woman on the basis of her observance of Islam, that their action is tantamount to discrimination, under “Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits religious discrimination. "’It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire .... any individual ... because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin,’ the law states.”

The Time article also reports that, “The key language, says Stewart Schwab, an employment lawyer and dean of Cornell Law School, is found in a 1972 amendment to Title VII. This amendment defined "religion." It reads, "The term 'religion' includes all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief, unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate an employee's or prospective employee's religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the conduct of the employer's business."

In a position statement, Abercrombie & Fitch told the EEOC that "under the Look Policy, associates must wear clothing that is consistent with the Abercrombie brand, cannot wear hats or other coverings, and cannot wear clothes that are the color black."

While Abercrombie says employees “cannot wear hats or other coverings”…a hijab is not a hat or a covering. It is an outward form of religious observance and practice. As the Deputy Director of the ACLU of Oklahoma, Chuck Thornton, says in this article: “If these allegations are true, they are serious. In this day and age, it’s not acceptable. Certainly, a headscarf is part and parcel of the Islamic experience.”

Learn more about the ACLU's works on behalf of religious freedom here.