Monday, June 08, 2015

SUPREME COURT - Latest Rulings 6/1/2015

"Supreme Court rules on headscarf dress code discrimination, threatening speech online" PBS NewsHour 6/1/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  The Supreme Court offered two decisions today.  The justices ruled in favor of a young Muslim woman who was rejected from working at Abercrombie & Fitch because she wears a hijab.  The court also overturned the conviction of a man who had posted threatening language against his ex-wife on Facebook.  Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal joins Jeffrey Brown to discuss those cases.

GWEN IFILL (NewsHour):  The often divided Supreme Court was mostly united today on two high-profile decisions, one involving workplace discrimination and the other about threats made online.

Jeffrey Brown has that story.

JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour):  Both cases ended in lopsided decisions from the high court.  In one, justices ruled in favor of a young Muslim woman who was rejected from working at the clothing store Abercrombie & Fitch because she wears a hijab, or headscarf.  In the other, the court overturned the conviction of a man who had posted threatening language against his ex-wife on Facebook.

With us now, as always, to discuss the cases is Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal.

Welcome back, Marcia.

Let’s start with the headscarf case.  Right?

MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal:  OK.

JEFFREY BROWN:  Remind us of the facts of this case.

MARCIA COYLE:  All right.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Abercrombie & Fitch on behalf of Samantha Elauf, claiming that the company violated Title VII, our nation’s major job bias law, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs and practices.

Ms. Elauf, as you said, had applied for a job in the company’s Tulsa, Oklahoma, store wearing the headscarf.  She didn’t say it was for religious reasons, but the hiring manager believed that was the case, sought guidance from a superior on whether that headscarf violated the company’s dress code, what it called the look policy.

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