Phoenix, USA - A new court decision could serve as a wake-up call to company owners and managers who impose dress codes on their workers: When it comes to religion, everything is different.
The ruling by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver concludes that Alamo Rent-A-Car violated federal law by refusing to allow a Muslim woman to wear a scarf during the holy month of Ramadan. The judge rejected a series of arguments by the company, including its contention that allowing her to wear the scarf — a clear sign of her religion in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks — would cause the firm undue hardship.
But Mary Jo O'Neill, the regional attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that kind of excuse will only get companies in legal hot water.
David Lopez, senior attorney for the agency, said the law allows employers to avoid accommodating requests if they can show undue hardship. And that has been defined in law to include financial considerations other than insignificant amounts.
But Lopez said a company that argues it will lose customers because of its workers' religious garb will lose in court — even if it could conceivably show some monetary harm.
He compared it to arguments made by companies in the Deep South in the 1960s that did not hire blacks.
"There would be many employers who would make the same argument," Lopez said. But he said that the exception in the law does not apply to the discriminatory preferences of customers.
Complicating matters for employers is that what constitutes a religious accommodation can't be strictly defined by what companies think of as a religion. "It only has to be a belief system," said Lopez, with courts loath to determine which beliefs constitute "religion."
In fact, he said, atheism fits that definition.
He cited one case — not involving dress but office policies — where an atheist sued because the company wanted all its workers to participate in a prayer. Lopez said the employee won.
The latest case involves Bilan Nur, who was hired by Alamo at its Phoenix office in 1999. Nur said she was allowed to wear the head scarf during Ramadan that year and in 2000.
But in 2001 — three months after the terrorist attacks — Nur was told she could not wear a scarf while waiting on customers. O'Neill said Nur even offered to wear an Alamo scarf but was rebuffed.
She eventually was fired.
Silver rejected arguments by Alamo that it could not exempt Nur from its corporate dress code. Silver said the company made no efforts to reasonably accommodate Nur's beliefs and failed to show that making any accommodations would have caused the company undue hardships.
In fact, Silver noted that the company's regional manager admitted under questioning that the only hardship Alamo might suffer is the image that the firm has with customers.
Silver's ruling means the only issue to be determined is how much the company will need to pay the woman, who has since left Arizona. O'Neill said her agency is seeking lost pay and other compensatory damages as well as punitive damages.
"Businesses have to recognize that when there's a religious belief or practice that they need to bend unless there's a darn good reason why they can't," O'Neill said.
For example, she cited another EEOC lawsuit against Blockbuster Video which had refused to let a Jewish employee wear a yarmulke. The company had a policy against letting workers wear headgear.
"Well, a yarmulke is not the same as a baseball cap," O'Neill said. The company agreed to a $50,000 penalty.
While these cases involve what might be considered only minor variations in the dress code, the same logic probably would apply to more radical ones.
O'Neill said her office has received complaints from women whose religion requires them to wear dresses. That overrules any dress codes that mandate slacks.
Similarly, she said a Sikh who is required to have a beard can keep it even if there are rules against facial hair.
And Lopez said the law also likely would preclude an employer from forbidding a Muslim woman from wearing a burqa.
Dress isn't the only thing covered.
Lopez cited an EEOC case from Washington against the Red Robin restaurant chain, which fired an employee who refused to cover his tattoos.
In that case, the worker said he practices Kemetecism, a religion with its roots in ancient Egypt. In accordance with joining the priesthood, he had two tattoos encircling his wrists, both written in Coptic, with religious sayings.
The employee said the tattoos represent his service to Ra, the Egyptian sun god, and that intentionally covering them is a sin.
The district court concluded the worker presented sufficient evidence to show he had "a bona fide religious belief."
The judge rejected statements that allowing the worker to have tattoos interferes with its efforts to present a family-oriented and kid-friendly image.
"Red Robin fails to present any evidence that visible tattoos are inconsistent with these goals generally, or that its customers specifically share this perception," the ruling states. "Hypothetical hardships based on unproved assumptions typically fail to constitute undue hardship."