The real question is, Why would a Muslima want to work at Abercrombie & Fitch in the first place? Wouldn’t she find the clothing line, the advertising, and the whole atmosphere objectionable on moral grounds? Shouldn’t she prefer to shun such an environment rather than want to work there at all, especially if she is pious and observant enough to want to wear the hijab?
Unless, of course, the real point of her getting hired in the first place was to compel an American business to change its practices in order to accommodate Islamic norms, and thereby to assert once again that Islam must dominate and not be dominated.
Hamas-linked CAIR was also involved — a clear sign that this was not about religious freedom but about Islamic supremacist strongarming for special privileges for Muslims. The involvement of Hamas-linked CAIR alone indicates that this is not analogous to refusing a job to a Jew wearing a kippah — this is part of a larger program.
“Top US court rules for Muslim woman denied Abercrombie job over hijab,” by Jana Kasperkevic, Guardian, June 1, 2015:
The US supreme court on Monday ruled in favor of Samantha Elauf, a Muslim woman who was denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a headscarf for religious reasons.
The justices decided the case, which united Christian, Muslim and Jewish and other religious organizations, with an 8-1 vote, ruling in favor of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which sued the company on behalf of Elauf.
“The EEOC applauds the Supreme Court’s decision affirming that employers may not make an applicant’s religious practice a factor in employment decisions,” said EEOC chair Jenny Yang, in a statement.
“This ruling protects the rights of workers to equal treatment in the workplace without having to sacrifice their religious beliefs or practices.”
In a statement to the Guardian, an Abercrombie & Fitch spokesperson said: “While the supreme court reversed the tenth circuit decision, it did not determine that A&F discriminated against Ms Elauf.
“We will determine our next steps in the litigation, which the supreme court remanded for further consideration.”
In 2008, when she was 17, Elauf was denied a sales job at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa. The legal question before the court was whether Elauf was required to inform the potential employer of a need for a religious accommodation in order for the company to be sued under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans employment discrimination based on religious beliefs and practices.
When attending her job interview, Elauf was wearing a headscarf, or hijab, but did not specifically say that as a Muslim she wanted the company to give her a religious accommodation that would allow her to wear it. She was denied the job because her hijab violated the company’s ‘look policy’ in two ways: it was black, and it was considered to be headwear.
During the 25 February hearing of the case, Justice Elena Kagan compared the situation to an employer deciding it did not want to hire Jewish people and then looking out for names that appeared Jewish as a way to screen applicants.
“That’s gotta be against the law, right?” she said.
Sure. But it really isn’t the issue here. The issue is whether Abercrombie & Fitch is allowed to project the image it wishes to as a company, or whether that image must give way to a statement of Islamic supremacism. The question of why a pious hijab-wearing Muslim woman would want to work at such a place never seems to have come up. It should have.