A hiring decision

Samantha Elauf wore a headscarf when she interviewed for a position at Abercrombie & Fitch. The employer’s Look Policy restricted headwear. The resulting litigation reached the Supreme Court as EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, decided on 1 June 2015. The Court examined whether liability under Title VII depended on the applicant first informing the employer that an accommodation was needed.

The majority separated knowledge from motive. Its account focused on whether avoiding a religious accommodation was a motivating factor in the hiring decision. A researcher who describes the case only as permission to wear a particular garment leaves out that central distinction in the reasoning.

The statutory vocabulary

Title VII’s definition of religion includes religious observance and practice as well as belief, with language addressing reasonable accommodation and undue hardship. The 2015 dispute therefore concerned the application of an employment-discrimination statute. It was not an adjudication of what a religious tradition required Elauf to wear.

That distinction changes the organization of a case note. The first column concerns the applicant’s practice, the second the employer’s decision, and the third the statutory elements. The court’s treatment of those elements belongs in its own column. The same facts can matter differently at each stage, and a commentator’s approval of the result cannot replace that reconstruction.

Reading the separate opinions

The separate opinions make the dispute over the legal framework particularly visible. They are worth placing beside the majority rather than extracting a single sentence from the syllabus. An account of the case can then distinguish the judgment reached from the different reasons offered for or against it.

For comparison with European workplace cases, begin with the legal instrument and procedural question. A similarity in clothing does not make two proceedings applications of the same test. This historical decision is one contribution to that comparison; later developments in accommodation law require their own sources and dates.

References

  1. EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, 575 U.S. 768 (2015)

    Supreme Court opinion, 1 June 2015. Read the majority and separate opinions on motive and knowledge.

  2. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e: Definitions

    Subsection (j) supplies Title VII’s definition of religion, including observance and practice.

Filed under Law & society. Sources and corrections.