Summary: Abercrombie’s religious battle will now head to the United States Supreme Court as employees continue to fight the store’s tough dress codes.
The United States Supreme Court has entered into a case involving the dress code at Abercrombie & Fitch, according to The Huffington Post.
Employees of the retail chain claim that they are not allowed to wear anything religious while at work.
The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it is going to hear an appeal filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding whether or not Abercrombie is allowed to disqualify people from obtaining a job because they want to wear a headscarf.
Abercrombie was sued in 2008 by the EEOC on the behalf of Samantha Elauf. Elauf is a Muslim who was rejected from a job with the company at its Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She was denied the job due to her headscarf, which the company said violated its rigid dress policy.
Elauf was 17 when she was denied the job and wore the headscarf during her job interview.
Elauf was issued a ruling in her favor by a lower court, which said the company was liable for religious discrimination. The decision was reversed by an appeals court, saying that Elauf had to explicitly ask for a religious accommodation.
This is not the first time the company has been accused of religious discrimination either. Multiple employees spoke with The Huffington Post last year about their problems. One Christian teen was forced to remove her cross. A Hindu employee was told to cut a religious string from her wrist. Muslin employees were forced to remove their headscarfs too.
The company agreed to make changes to the dress code in 2013 as part of a settlement in two religious discrimination cases, in which the company said the following in a statement last year:
“We are happy to have settled these cases and to have put these very old matters behind us.”
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