#2-Supreme Court Will Consider Abercrombie's Religious Discrimination Case

A model at the front entrance to the Abercrombie & Fitch flagship store in New York City.

I was looking around on the NPR Website and came across an article about a Supreme Court case which intrigued me. Because this article was a Supreme Court Case, I wanted to know if the reporting was cogent or fallacious. The case will look at concerns about Abercrombie & Fitch and their hiring practices. The issue is whether or not A & F discriminated against a woman who wore a head scarf.

Bloomberg explains:

"Samantha Elauf was 17 in 2008 when she applied for a sales job at an Abercrombie Kids store in a mall in Tulsa. She had been told by a friend who worked for the retailer that wearing a hijab wouldn't be a problem—as long as it wasn't black. Sales associates can't wear black at Abercrombie.

"During her interview, Elauf wore a head scarf and the assistant manager scored her style a 6, which was good enough to be hired. When the assistant manager sought approval for Elauf's hijab, though, a supervisor said the head scarf didn't meet Abercrombie's look policy. Hats are not allowed at Abercrombie. The supervisor later said he didn't know that Elauf wore the scarf for religious reasons. Elauf wasn't hired."

A lawsuit was filed and Elauf won; however, an appeals court reversed the decision and said that she should have asked for a religious exemption during the interview.

The Supreme Court will have to decide if Abercrombie & Fitch knew that she wore the scarf for religious reasons or if she just did not fit their “look book”. They will also have to decide if a retail company can even have a “look book” or if that is discrimination.  This is very interesting and I will be interested to see how the Supreme Court decides. It seems that you could argue the case either way. I am jumping to the conclusion that A & F knew she wore it for religious reasons and that she would have had it on every time she came to work or they would have just told her about their policy to not allow hats and let her decide to take it off or leave.

A few years ago Hollister was in our mall in St. George. I was surprised to find out that they discriminate on people according to their size. I have a son who has huge thighs and another who is 6 feet 7 inches tall. I could never find jeans that would fit them. One day I asked why they never had the sizes I needed in stock and the worker said that they only sold clothes to smaller and average size people. If a person is too tall, too fat, or has too big of thighs (as my football son did) the company did not want them wearing their label. The store had a reputation of supplying clothing only to those who were the perfect size and no one else had the right or privilege to wear their clothing. I had to shop somewhere else for their jeans. I just figured it is their store and their reputation and my boys did not fit in.

Religious liberty was central to the Founding Fathers’ vision for America and I am all for equal opportunity employment. I definitely think the First Amendment is important. I also think a company has the right to decide who they hire if their store or business depends solely on its appearance and reputation. If the clothing store wants to attract a certain kind of shopper they should be able to choose who they hire. They can require certain reasonable dress code restrictions and should be able to enforce them. It seems like a person would not really want to work at a business they were not welcome at. I guess it is just so easy to sue a company over discrimination these days. Having said all of that I can see how it gives the company a right to say that anyone they do not like does not fit their “look book”.  

I think this article is a bit one sided and even fallacious because it leans toward the fact that A& F are guilty of discrimination. The article points out another time that the company was in trouble over alleged discrimination and how they ended up paying a $71,000 settlement and agreeing to change its policy. Some of the facts in the article are cogent, but because of the way it is written it is fallacious and one sided on what facts the writer chose to report. The writer is telling you what they want you to hear which is that A & F discriminates against people. I will be following this story to see how it turns out.