by Greg Stohr (Bloomberg News)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a Muslim teenager who was denied a job at Abercrombie & Fitch Co. because she wore a head scarf, in a clash over religious discrimination in the workplace.
The justices Thursday said they will hear an appeal from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is suing the retailer under a federal job-bias law on behalf of Samantha Elauf. A federal appeals court threw out the suit, saying Elauf didn’t explicitly tell Abercrombie that she needed a religious exemption from its dress code to work at a store in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The court ruled in a separate case in June that corporations can claim a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s birth-control coverage requirements. The new case aligns President Barack Obama’s administration with religious organizations, potentially pitting them against business groups looking to fend off lawsuits over dress codes and work schedules.
Claims of religious discrimination in the U.S. workplace are on the rise. The EEOC received 3,700 formal complaints last year, more than double the number 15 years earlier.
The issue “is of enormous practical importance to a wide array of believers from numerous religious traditions, and its importance increases daily as the nation grows more religiously diverse,” according to a court filing by eight religious groups, representing Christians, Jews, Sikhs and Muslims.
Watch Video Below:
