Supreme Court – just lie

The Supreme Court heard arguments about headscarves this week. Specifically, the case of Samantha Elauf who was 17 when she went into a job interview at Abercrombie & Fitch in Tulsa, Oklahoma, wearing a headscarf.

She aced the interview but didn’t get the job, and a friend who worked at the store told her why: the district manager had said it was because, “Someone can come in and paint themselves green and say they were doing it for religious reasons.”

Well, sure enough, Samantha was wearing the scarf for religious reasons – she’s a Muslim – but she hadn’t mentioned religion, nor had she been asked.

So she complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which sued on the grounds she was denied the job based on a religious stereotype.

The Supreme Court justices were befuddled by some of the arguments, but after going round and round seemed to reach a consensus, and it was this:

If a job applicant walks in with a head scarf, or a beard, or a turban, or wearing a nun’s habit, you simply say, our dress code says no beards, headscarves, turbans, or habits – are you OK with that?

No need to even to ask about religion.

In other words, you can still discriminate, just don’t be an idiot and say so.

But it no longer makes any difference to Samantha Elauf. She’s now 24 and working as a merchandise manager at Urban Outfitters – wearing the headscarf – and looking fabulous, by the way.

She could also work at Abercrombie – since they stopped banning headscarves in 2013. Their ban on ugly people clearly would not apply.