WASHINGTON — The Supreme
Court on Monday revived an employment discrimination lawsuit against
Abercrombie & Fitch, which had refused to hire a Muslim woman because she
wore a head scarf. The company said the scarf clashed with its dress code, which
called for a “classic East Coast collegiate style.”
“This is really easy,” Justice
Antonin Scalia said in announcing the decision from the bench.
The company, he said, at least
suspected that the applicant, Samantha Elauf, wore the head scarf for religious
reasons. The company’s decision not to hire her, Justice Scalia said, was
motivated by a desire to avoid accommodating her religious practice. That was
enough, he concluded, to allow her to sue under a federal employment
discrimination law.
The vote was 8 to 1, with Justice
Clarence Thomas dissenting.
Ms. Elauf had been awarded $20,000
by a jury, but the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in
Denver, overturned
the award, saying the trial judge should have dismissed the case before
trial. “Ms. Elauf never informed Abercrombie before its hiring decision that she
wore her head scarf, or ‘hijab,’ for religious reasons,” Judge Jerome A. Holmes
wrote for the appeals court.
The Supreme
Court sent the case back to the appeals court for further consideration, but
Monday’s ruling suggests that Ms. Elauf is likely to prevail.
Justice Scalia, writing for seven
justices, said Ms. Elauf did not have to make a specific request for a religious
accommodation to obtain relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which prohibits religious discrimination in hiring.
“Title VII forbids adverse
employment decisions made with a forbidden motive,” Justice Scalia said from the
bench, “whether this motive derives from actual knowledge, a well-founded
suspicion or merely a hunch.”
Justice Scalia elaborated on this
point in his written opinion. “An employer may not make an applicant’s religious
practice, confirmed or otherwise, a factor in employment decisions,” he
wrote.
Groups that represent religious
minorities, including Muslims, Sikhs and Jews, applauded the ruling. They said
it would help protect their members against employment discrimination based on
their members’ religious attire, head coverings or beards.
“The decision by the Supreme Court
today affirmed the basic right to practice one’s faith freely without fear of
being denied the opportunity to pursue the American dream,” said Gurjot Kaur,
senior staff attorney of the Sikh Coalition, a national advocacy
group.
The case started in 2008 when Ms.
Elauf, then 17, applied for a job in a children’s clothing store owned by
Abercrombie & Fitch at Woodland Hills Mall in Tulsa, Okla. She wore a black
head scarf but did not say why.
The company declined to hire her,
saying her scarf clashed with the company’s “Look Policy,” or dress code. After
the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission sued on Ms. Elauf’s behalf, the company
said it had no reason to know that Ms. Elauf’s head scarf was required by her
faith.
In its
Supreme Court brief in the case, E.E.O.C. v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores,
No. 14-86, the company argued that job applicants should not be allowed “to
remain silent and to assume that the employer recognizes the religious
motivations behind their fashion decisions.”
Carlene Benz, an Abercrombie
spokeswoman, said the company had altered its dress code since 2008, allowing
workers “to be more individualistic.” She added that the company “has a
longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion” and “has granted numerous
religious accommodations when requested, including hijabs.”
At the trial, Ms. Elauf said she
loved movies, shopping, sushi and the mall. “It’s like my second home,” she
said.
Her experience with Abercrombie
made her feel “disrespected because of my religious beliefs,” she said. “I was
born in the United States, and I thought I was the same as everyone else.”
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. voted
with the majority to reverse the appeals court’s decision, but he did not adopt
the majority’s reasoning. “I would hold,” he wrote, “that an employer cannot be
held liable for taking an adverse action because of an employee’s religious
practice unless the employer knows that the employee engages in the practice for
a religious reason.” He added that in this case there was “ample evidence” that
“Abercrombie knew that Elauf is a Muslim and that she wore the scarf for a
religious reason.”
In dissent, Justice Thomas wrote
that the company’s dress code was a neutral policy that could not be the basis
for a discrimination lawsuit.
Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York.