It's been a crazy week for Muslim Americans wearing hijabs.
Shortly after a Muslim American woman was denied an unopened can of coke on a United Airways flight for "security reasons," the United States top court found Abercrombie & Fitch guilty of employment discrimination after not hiring a woman for wearing a headscarf.
The top court in the United States found that Abercrombie & Fitch failed to accommodate Samantha Elauf's religious practice. Abercrombie and Fitch, a preppy retailer whose controversial "Look Book" has been oft criticized in the media, employs dress code guidelines that include "right layering" and a guide to cuffing pants and shirts properly. They also were known for employing only attractive employees.
It was a long road to public recognition. In 2008, Elauf was denied a position at Abercrombie & Fitch, as her hijab didn't fit the Look Book, which stated that, “No associate is permitted to wear any extreme hair styles or hair color. Hair styles and hair color should reflect your natural beauty.”
Apparently, a hijab is an unacceptable hair-do. Elauf was 17 at the time.
Abercrombie argued that it was up to Elauf to make the company aware that she wore a hijab for religious reasons, as they claimed not to know that and said that they would have also denied the job to someone who wore a baseball cap.
Somehow, we think those two things are different.
However, the Supreme Court decision ruled that it is not up to the job applicant to request religious accommodation and that an employer needs to make sure that they are not discriminating against potential employees. Religious minorities in the United States applauded this decision.
While the ruling, which overturned an appeal by Abercrombie that dismissed Elauf's case, doesn't end the case, it makes it extremely unlikely that the company can prevail when the case returns to the lower court.
In an effort to perhaps not look so bad, an Abercrombie & Fitch spokesperson told BuzzFeed that the company has come up “with a new dress code that allows associates to be more individualistic” and “changed our hiring practices not to consider attractiveness.”
Progress.