Comments on: EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch: employers as mind-readers

By: En Passant

En Passant — Wed, 04 Feb 2015 17:59:23 +0000

The Supreme Court is considering the case of a woman who sued torrid-youth retailer Abercrombie & Fitch, saying it discriminated against her based on religious belief when it failed to waive its “Look Policy,” in which sales personnel are expected to wear only clothes sold by the store, to accommodate her modesty headscarf.

Simpleminded question: Might it be less expensive for A&F to just carry a single small line of plain headscarves, than to fight all the way to SCOTUS? Purchase a minimum order, a few hundred or thousand. Sell them "under the counter" if they don't wish to display them. When an employee requires a headscarf for religious reasons, they can buy one from A&F.

By: grannybunny

grannybunny — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:38:21 +0000

This case hardly requires the employer to be a mind-reader. The man who interviewed Elauf for the job — while she was wearing the headscarf — assumed, correctly, that she was doing so for religious reasons.

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 18:19:13 +0000

Attention: Quakers seeking to affirm rather than swear when testifying, Orthodox asking to keep their yarmulkes on in court, Mennonites asking to work in hospitals rather than carry arms in war, and Jehovah’s Witnesses wanting to be excused from the Pledge of Allegiance: you can just move on to some other country. This one is Mr. Sheil’s.

By: John Sheil

John Sheil — Tue, 03 Feb 2015 17:34:26 +0000

Religious/conscience wavers are per-se absurd because religion is whatever a person says it is. “We have this rule, and you absolutely must follow it, unless you say you don’t want to.” To have a waiver based on “asking for a waiver” means the rule is not a rule.

What if we had religious waivers for environmental regulations, and the CEO of Exxon said that it was his religion to spill oil into the ocean? What if a religious extremist insists that his religion commands him to kill infidels? It’s not just the scale that makes those comparisons absurd, it is the entire concept of religious waivers.