Thread: Dress Code Conformance

I am taking taking an Ethics Course and was presented with the following ethics discussion from the St. Louis business Journal:

[I]J.M. Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch Stores Inc. fired a Galleria store employee who refused to wear above-the-knee skirts and pants because it conflicted with her religious beliefs, alleges a lawsuit the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed.

LaKettra Bennett said her religion, Pentecostalism, does not permit her to wear pants or skirts if the hemline does not cover the knee, the EEOC says in its suit.

Bennett asked Hollister if she could wear a longer skirt to work but Hollister refused and fired her, the lawsuit alleges.

"A&F has a long-standing committment to fostering diversity and inclusiveness," said David Cupps, Abercrombie and Fitch's general counsel, in a statement. "While I haven't studied the complaint and

therefore can't comment on it, I'd be very surprised if A&F was not completely faithful to its policy in these circumstances."

Since you are working for them it is better to follow their rules and regulations. But I thing there's no need to have dress code because the style of dressing not affect your work.

Title VII and most of the state and municipal fair employment practices analogues impose upon an employer the obligation of not engaging in disparate treatment or other discrimination based on religion. These statutes also impose the corollary obligation upon an employer to accommodate an employee’s religious practices if said practices will not substantially interfere with the company’s operations.

If an employee explained that her Pentecostal religious faith compelled her to wear long dresses and skirts, then an employer would normally have to accommodate her unless such a form of dress substantially interfered with the company’s operations. It is difficult to fathom how her wearing of a skirt objectively would have constituted an undue hardship on the store. It is equally difficult to perceive how Abercrombie & Fitch (“A&F”) can justify its position here in light of its affirmative obligation to accommodate a worker’s reasonable religious practice.

Notably, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has recently twice sued A&F for terminating an employee and refusing to hire an applicant for their respectively wearing a head scarf, a “hijab,” as a sincerely held religious expression. In light of the foregoing, it appears A&F has a corporate “blind spot” when it comes to religious accommodation.

See June 27, 2011 EEOC Press Release, http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/6-27-11a.cfm