Employers Must Attempt To Accommodate Religious Dress And Grooming Practices

The EEOC has just announced a new lawsuit on what has become a familiar topic - the alleged refusal of an employer, an Alabama nursing home, to accommodate a Muslim employee whose religious beliefs require her to wear a hijab, or head covering. These religious discrimination cases relating to appearance are now almost cookie cutter in their allegations - and yet employers do not seem to be listening or seeing.

EEOC's Accusation Of Failure To Accommodate Religious Beliefs/Practices

The company in this new suit not only refused to accommodate plaintiff, but according to the EEOC, fired her after she filed an EEOC charge - which would be retaliation, claims the EEOC.

Various EEOC attorneys stated the obvious: "Businesses ... must respect the religious practices of their employees and, when practical, accommodate those practices. "The EEOC will continue to target policies and practices that discourage or prohibit people from exercising their rights under employment discrimination statutes, or that impede the EEOC's investigative or enforcement efforts."

"Failure to accommodate religious dress and grooming remains a wide-spread problem. The EEOC recently issued a Question and Answer document and a fact sheet to guide employers and employees on this issue. This agency will remain vigilant to ensure that Americans of all faiths are free from discrimination in the workplace."

The EEOC Guidance

We wrote on March 7th about the Question and Answer document referred to by the EEOC, above. "The EEOC has just published a report on "how federal employment discrimination law applies to religious dress and grooming practices, and what steps employers can take to meet their legal responsibilities in this area."

We noted that "as if to underscore the need for such guidance," the government just sued the Philly school district for requiring a Muslim police officer to trim his beard under a new grooming policy which requires school police officers not to have a beard longer than a quarter-inch. He claimed that his religion forbids this.

An EEOC spokesman said then: "No employee should be forced to violate his religious beliefs in order to earn a living. Modifying a dress or grooming code is a reasonable accommodation that enables employees to keep...