Court ruling backs Muslim job seeker

Samantha Elauf was denied a job for wearing a head scarf. Photo / AP

The US Supreme Court has fortified a law requiring accommodations for employees and job-seekers because of their religious beliefs.

In a lopsided vote, the court revived a lawsuit against clothing retailer Abercrombie and Fitch filed after a 17-year-old Muslim job applicant said she was turned down because her head scarf conflicted with the company's dress code.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission took up the case of Samantha Elauf, and contended it was not necessary for her to explicitly tell the interviewer about her religious practices to be protected by the federal anti-discrimination law, known as Title VII. The court, with one dissenting vote, agreed.

"This one is really easy," Justice Antonin Scalia said from the bench in announcing the ruling. "Title VII forbids adverse employment decisions made with a forbidden motive, whether this motive derives from actual knowledge, a well-founded suspicion, or merely a hunch."

He noted the court was not deciding whether a company would be liable if it had no idea the practice was a religious one.

"Here the employer at least suspected that the practice was a religious one. Its refusal to hire was motivated by the desire to avoid accommodating that practice, and this is enough," Scalia said.

Employers worried the ruling will force them into the position of asking possibly illegal questions about an applicant's religion.

"Shifting this burden to employers sets an unclear and confusing standard making business owners extremely vulnerable to inevitable discrimination lawsuits," said Karen Harned of the National Federation of Independent Business.

The justices' decision returns the case to lower courts. Abercrombie has changed its dress code and settled similar lawsuits since the 2008 incident.

Elauf scored well enough in her interview for a "model" position, as the company refers to its sales staff, when she applied at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, shopping centre. But a decision was then made not to offer the job because of the conflict with the dress code, which forbids "caps."

- Washington Post-Bloomberg