Muslim teen sues Abercrombie & Fitch

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32913991/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/?GT1=43001

There's really no surprise that they don't think twice about religious discrimination. My guess is that this will end in one of two ways:
1) Abercrombie & Fitch will be paying the girl a tidy sum to make this go away (more likely).
2) A jury will make them pay

A & F has a certain style, a definite look. If I were hiring and someone showed up in a head scarf, I would think, "hmmm, seems like they don't really get what we're doing here, or they would have known better than to show up at an interview dressed like that."

What if one of the Jessop people for that Mormon sect in Texas came in for an interview in one of their home-made prarie dresses?

I think a retail store should have the right to expect job interviewees to dress in a way to shows that they understand what the job would entail. Demonstrating an understanding of the culture of a certain kind of retail store would definitely show that the person understood fashion trends.

After all, would you expect to get hired if you went on an interview at an upscale, chic boutique dressed in ripped jeans and a tank top?

n/t.

If you're going to apply to work at some place you need to dress the part

and dressing in accordance with your personal religious convictiosn.

But that was not what your previous post argued

You stated that her look was a preferred look in some boutiques and I'm pointing out that at A&F it is not.

I do happen to feel at some point, if you want to work some place you need to be willing to dress in accordance with what that business look is.
If your personal, sociological or religious beliefs require you to dress or act in a manner that is not in compliance with what the business is, then look elsewhere for work

The law clearly forbids discrimination based on religion, and the scarf is a religious requirement, so telling her she can't be hired because of a religious requirement is going to be a hard sell as non-discrimination. If their look was all white, they couldn't use that as an excuse to refuse to hire black people. Religious discrimination is prohibited in the same Civil Rights legislation.

The mistake of AF is in telling her why they weren't hiring her. If they had just not called her back, or said she lacked the experience, she wouldn't have a case. The manager told her he wouldn't hire her because of the scarf. That implies he would have hired her otherwise. Lawyers will line up for this one.

this will be found against A & F. It would open a ridiculous floodgate. This cannot be equated to the case they lost in London by the girl with the false arm.

" prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin."

It's going to be a hard sell that AF didn't violate federal law here.

it would be necessary for the hijab to be a compulsory requirement of Islam. It isn't - its a choice made by some.

It only have to be proven that her beliefs require it.

Well almost anyone especially those who registered as Jedis in our last UK census. You see - it was already known that soon as the figure crossed 10000 our government were obliged to recognise it as a religion but not necessarily provide funding. : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2757067.stm Same happened in NZ and probably OZ too.

So do you figure that A & F would lose a case here , where they lost the other case , against someone wanting to wear a toy light sabre as a committment to their religion. :shrug:

Nor would it be difficult to prove that many Muslims believe Islam requires them to wear a head scarf. I'll worry about the Jedi thing if it happens.

Could a restaurant refuse to higher a Catholic because that Catholic would not eat meat on Fridays during Lent, and use as an excuse that not all Christians refused to eat meat on Fridays, therefore it was not a religious requirement?

Can she process credit cards?

Ezekiel 18:13 Hath given forth upon usury, and hath taken increase: shall he then live? he shall not live: he hath done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon him.

Usury is defined as one percent interest, in other places in the Bible. During the Middle Ages Christians were forbidden from charging or borrowing at interest, but Jews, who could not charge interest to each other, could charge interest to Christians (it's in Deutoronomy). That's how the stereotype of Jews as moneylenders grew up in the west--the only time most Christians had dealings with Jews in Europe was when they had to borrow money.

Can Christians process credit cards? Does the fact that Christians use credit cards mean that they cannot have protection against religious discrimination?

It is not the place of a secular court to interpret religion.

Anyway, I don't think Riba means you can't process a credit card. It means you can't pay or take interest. Even there, there is wiggle room. There are Sharia complain credit cards which use other tricks to avoid charging interest, such as the lender "buying" the product and "leasing" it to the Muslim until the full amount is paid off.

Since they are not required in the Koran. IF the court upholds that view, then there is no basis for suit.

It's not the court's job to interpret how a person follows their religion.

Anyway, you're wrong. There are passages in the Qur'an and the Hadith which are interpreted as requiring a woman to cover her hair, or everything but her face. Some schools of Islamic law claim they can be interpreted more loosely, but it's not the secular court's role to interpret a person's religion for them.

nobody makes her dress any certain way. she doesn't give a crap about what others (A&C) think so she just demands the entire planet cave in to her way or the highway. typical religion promoter :-)

Msongs

I mean, if it is my beleif that I be naked all the time, is that protected? I know its an extreme example, but my point is, at what point does ones belief not become protected and who gets to decide that?

It's just another clothing company whose product isn't really clothes, but an attitude. They advertise (proselytize) about how people should look and their arguments (indoctrination) rest on little more than opinion (faith) and the need for money (tithes).

The teenager either really needed that job or she's looking for a test case. Let 'em fight it out. I hope A&F has to pay off big. It'll be another step in the reclamation of our cultural commons.

Currently in the EEO clas as we speak.

This seems like an open/shut case straight out of the textbook...

Choice has nothing to do with it, she is entitled her scarf as a prominent part of her religion
The A&F Mgr flubbed by saying this was the reason for not hiring

she does have a case, and I hope it comes out in her favor.

is to have an across the board policy against religious display of any type, including Muslim dress, gold crosses, yarmulkes, Wiccan symbols.

FWIW, the proscription of the hijab, a simple head scarf, is odd. Women in the Middle East look absolutely stunning with them as a part of a fashionable ensemble.

Shoot, it could even start a fashion as women realize there's something they can do on bad hair days, increasing store revenue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/fashionnews/5627010/Abercrombie-and-Fitchs-Look-Policy-that-employees-must-follow.html

"Beards, moustaches or other facial hair are banned except for religious reasons."

If they make at least one allowance for religious reasons, it's an open and shut case.

and with an unhealthy dose of sexism thrown in.

...but I'd side with A&F on this one.

I don't think tolerance has to extend to excessive accommodation. At some point religious people have to be willing to pay a price for their silly faith-based rules about what they think they can and cannot do. It shouldn't cause anyone else any major inconvenience or expense to facilitate their self-imposed rituals and restrictions.

Should a butcher who handles a lot of pork be required to higher someone who refuses to work with pork, pay him full pay for half the work just to accommodate his or her religious beliefs?

As I see it, if your faith tells you that you have to wear a head scarf and hijab then your faith is telling you that you shouldn't try to work at A&F.

Why shouldn't I start a religion which says every day of the week except Thursday is a Sabbath day, and sue for discrimination when an employer won't accommodate my one-day-per-week work schedule? Maybe I should demand the full pay that people who work M-F get while I'm at it.

As crazy as this sounds, in Israel they have something almost as ridiculous: A Jewish sect that hates the Israeli government, conducts rude, disruptive protests pushing for extreme orthodoxy, that believes they need to devote themselves to religious study and thus by and large don't work for a living... yet they live mostly off government handouts, expecting the rest of the citizenry to support their choice to do no productive work.

not an abaya...just a scarf.

Secondly, if you consider a head scarf a "major inconvenience or expense", you're the one who's being silly.

I consider A&F's attitude and product to be all about shallow, mindless consumerism. They sell an "image". A hijab doesn't match that image. Shallow minded though that is, A&F is in the business of shallow. They have a right to that.

What I can't understand is why someone who thinks wearing a hijab is important would even want to work at A&F. That seems like a strong clash of values.

Unless Miss Elauf can fit the anorexic-aryan-skank profile, A&F is probably not for her.

It is excessive to require A&F to hire people with obtrusive clothes. She was not passed over for the fact that she is a muslim. She was not hired because she insisted on wearing clothes that interferes with her ability to do her job.


It is a shame that so many people just get off on trying to extort money from companies with lawsuits like this.

It makes perfect sense that this girl applied for the job (knowing full well that she wouldn't be hired) for the explicit purpose of being able to sue them for lots of money because doing so brings her pleasure and A&F fell right into her clever trap by telling her that she wouldn't be hired because of her religious attire--something she had to know in advance that they would say.

Makes perfect sense. It has entrapment and extortion written all over it. Good work!

is that they don't get laughed out of court and then stuck with a sanction of $500+ because they wasted the time of our overbooked legal system.

You just KNOW this will get its dayS in court.

And I will say this now for probably the thousandth time: If your religion, morality, or other behavioral patterns will keep you from doing the job, then get a different fucking job. If you don't want to kill people, don't join the military or a SWAT team. If you want to wear loose fitting long sleeves and head scarf, don't work around machinery. The list goes on, but basically, DO YOUR FUCKING JOB!

*The preceding rant was not directed at anyone specific on this thread. :)

one of the Disney characters who wander through Disney World as Pluto or Donald Duck or Goofy, etc. but once hired refused to wear the costume?

Could the A&F "look" be legally equivalent to 'product' or 'image' in the same way that the person who is hired to be "Goofy" has to wear the Goofy look?

A&F seem over several years' advertising to rely heavily on a near-naked or half-dressed look, in which models are seen cavorting in bed and on sofas, and so forth. It's an age-to-marketing strategy, from all appearances, likely going for the young adult demographic.

Higher-end restaurants are permitted to insist that guests arrive in formal evening clothes. Why would the same sanction not cover A&F in the present case?

She's from Kuwait. I have spent nearly 6 years working in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia and Egypt), so I like to chat with folks from that part of the world when I run into them here in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away at Fry's, I yakked with a young Egyptian woman who does not wear the hijab at work. That was like Old Home Week. She grew up in Alexandria, where I lived for almost 4 years.

I'm a Fundamentalist Atheist, so I don't have a god in this fight.

For all the right-wing Xian bloviators who like to talk about a Monolithic Islamic Juggernaut bearing down on us, I guess, I can note some huge differences I've noticed in the rules about women covering up.

It's not a simple issue. One of the most famous female experts on Islamic law, Souad Saleh at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, says there is no Koranic requirement for full body coverage. She is down with the hijab. But other experts say that not even the hijab is mandatory.

Leila Ahmed, author of Women and Gender In Islam, takes the interesting approach that the modern re-emergence of hijab started as a reaction to Western colonialism, especially in places like Egypt. Ahmed also traced the history of full-body veiling back to the Persian Empire, and says it originally had nothing to do with Islam.

Anyway, when I lived in Saudi Arabia, women certainly did cover up completely, and the Religious Police were always around to make sure they did.

Egypt is completely different. Young women there dress pretty much like young Western women - tight jeans and designer tops or T-shits. Usually topped with a hijab, but very rarely a black one.

Seeing a gaggle of young women outside Alexandria University could be quite a sight. Their headscarves were generally bright colors like orange, turquoise, yellow, electric blue, etc. etc. With gold or silver embroidery.

They looked like a field of exotic flowers. At least until I remembered the REASON they wore the headscarves. And it was not unusual to see young women without headscarves in any gathering. They could have been Xians (about 5% of the Egyptian population), Muslims who did not wear hijab, or even non-believers like me.

A sight that frequently bent my mind in Egypt - a woman driving her own car, yakking on her cellphone, while dressed in an outfit straight out of the Seventh Century.

/pointless ramble