The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Muslim woman who was not hired by a fashion retailer because she wore a headscarf during a job interview.
In the 8-1 vote, the justices found that Abercrombie & Fitch failed to accommodate Samantha Elauf’s religious needs when they declined to hire her in 2008 for a position at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
While she earned high marks during the hiring process, her score was downgraded because she wore a headscarf during the interview.
The fashion retailer’s “Look Policy” prohibits black clothing, facial hair, highlighted hair, dangly earrings, and at the time of her interview it also banned the wearing of caps, including headscarves. That has since changed.
Discriminating against an applicant based on religion is illegal under federal law, unless the employer can prove that accommodating the applicant would impose an undue hardship.
The company argued that it couldn’t have known that it needed to make an exemption to its employee dress code because Elauf didn’t identify herself as a Muslim.
The court found that Abercrombie & Fitch “knew — or at least suspected — that the scarf was worn for religious reasons.
“There is sufficient evidence in the summary judgment record to support a finding that Abercrombie’s decisionmakers knew that Elauf was a Muslim and that she wore the headscarf for a religious reason,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the majority opinion.
Clarence Thomas, the only black justice on the court, was the sole dissenting vote.
