Religion

Justices Appear to Favor Muslim Denied Job Over Headscarf

Published

11 years ago

February 26, 2015

Samantha Elauf stands outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015. The Supreme Court is indicating it will side with a Muslim woman who didn’t get hired by clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch because she wore a black headscarf that conflicted with the company’s dress code to her job interview. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Have you heard the one about the Sikh, the Hasidic Jew, the Muslim and the nun who walked into a job interview?

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito channeled his inner stand-up comic Wednesday in indicating that he and most of the court would side with a Muslim woman who showed up for a job interview with Abercrombie & Fitch wearing a black headscarf. She didn’t get hired.

Samantha Elauf, the woman at the center of the case about religious discrimination in hiring, was in the courtroom Wednesday. The case turns on how an employer is supposed to know that a worker or applicant has religious beliefs that need to be accommodated.

The clothing retailer said Elauf can’t claim discrimination because she didn’t say anything about religion during her interview.

Alito acknowledged that it sounded like he was making a joke in describing interviews with “a Sikh man wearing a turban,” “a Hasidic man wearing a hat,” ”a Muslim woman wearing a hijab” and “a Catholic nun in a habit.” But his point was that employers can’t feign ignorance when people appear before them in religious clothing.

“Now, do you think … that those people have to say, we just want to tell you, we’re dressed this way for a religious reason. We’re not just trying to make a fashion statement,” Alito said.

Pressed by both conservative and liberal justices, Abercrombie lawyer Shay Dvoretzky said employers would get into trouble if they started making assumptions about people. “What we want to avoid is a rule that leads employers, in order to avoid liability, to start stereotyping about whether they think, guess or suspect that somebody is doing something for religious reasons,” Dvoretzky said.

Only Justice Antonin Scalia seemed open to the company’s argument.

Several of Scalia’s colleagues said there’s an easy way to avoid stereotyping. Tell job applicants what the rules are and ask them, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “You have a problem with that?”

Those conversations sometimes might be awkward, Justice Elena Kagan said. But far better the awkward moments than a situation that leads to stereotyping anyway, Kagan said.

Indeed, Alito made the point that despite Elauf’s silence, the company assumed she would wear a headscarf to work because of her religion.

“You assumed she was going to do this every day. And the only reason she would do it every day was because she had a religious reason,” he said.

The federal civil rights law known as title VII requires employers to make accommodations for employees’ religious beliefs in most instances. Dvoretzky said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, representing Elauf, wants employers to treat people differently based on religion, “which is precisely the opposite of what Title VII wants.”

That provoked a sharp reply from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “Title VII requires them to treat people who have religious practice differently. They don’t have to accommodate a baseball cap. They do have to accommodate a yarmulke,” Ginsburg said, referring to a Jewish skullcap.

Abercrombie has continued to fight Elauf’s lawsuit, filed on her behalf by the EEOC, even though it since has settled similar claims and changed its headscarf policy. The ban on black clothing remains part of its Look Policy for employees.

Elauf was 17 when she interviewed for a “model” position, as the company calls its sales staff, at an Abercrombie Kids store in a shopping mall in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2008. She impressed the assistant store manager. But her application faltered over her headscarf, or hijab, because it conflicted with the company’s Look Policy, a code derived from Abercrombie’s focus on what it calls East Coast collegiate or preppy style.

At the time of the interview, the policy required employees to dress in a way consistent with the clothing Abercrombie sells, and it prohibited wearing headscarves or anything in black.

The woman who conducted the interview consulted with a more senior supervisor and then decided not to hire Elauf because of the headscarf, according to testimony in the case. “The only reason there was a suit here was because she was honest,” Sotomayor said, calling the interviewer’s candid comment rare in employment discrimination cases.

After Elauf complained, a jury eventually awarded her $20,000. But the federal appeals court in Denver threw out the award and concluded that Abercrombie & Fitch could not be held liable because Elauf never asked the company to relax its policy against headscarves.

Organizations of state and local governments are supporting the company out of concerns that, if the EEOC prevails, they would be subject to more discrimination claims as large employers.

Muslim, Christian and Jewish advocacy organizations have weighed in on Elauf’s side, as have gay-rights groups.

A legal brief on behalf of Orthodox Jews argues that requiring job applicants to voice the need for religion-related special treatment makes them less likely to be hired, with no reason given for the decision. Orthodox Jews who wear a skullcap, or who may not work on Saturdays, are routinely advised to withhold that information until after they are hired, lawyer Nathan Lewin said in his Supreme Court filing.

A decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch, 14-86, is expected by late June.

___

Follow Mark Sherman on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/shermancourt

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Black History

COMMENTARY: Our Voices — When Armed Power Appears at the Ballot Box

TEXAS METRO NEWS — “What terrifies me most is how casually these conversations are now happening. We are discussing armed federal presence near elections as though this were a normal political debate. Fifty years ago, Americans would have recognized immediately how dangerous this sounded.”

Published

2 weeks ago

July 20, 2026

bpusa-syndication

Rev. Peter Johnson / Credit: Courtney Collins / KERA

By Rev. Peter Johnson | Texas Metro News

There are sounds you never forget once you have heard them. The slow crunch of gravel beneath a sheriff’s boots outside a voting station. The sound of a shotgun being cocked. The silence of Black citizens standing in line, afraid to make eye contact. The sound of a church mother whispering, “Baby, if I don’t come home tonight, tell your daddy I tried.”

I remember grown men trembling before voter registration tables, not because they were weak, but because they understood exactly what power could do to a Black body in America. I remember pastors watching police cars circle churches where voter meetings were being held. I remember people disappearing from movements overnight. I remember fear sitting beside democracy like an armed guard.

That is why my spirit turned cold when I heard the discussion of ICE agents and Border Patrol officers being present at polling stations. Some of us have seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

America keeps pretending voter intimidation belongs only to history books. It does not. It evolves. It changes uniforms. It changes language. But it always carries the same message: “Some of you should think twice before showing up here.”

Today, the target may be immigrants, Latino communities, Muslims, asylum seekers, or mixed-status families. Tomorrow it will expand. It always expands. History teaches that once fear is allowed near the ballot box, democracy itself begins gasping for air.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly defended the idea of immigration enforcement officers near polling locations, asking why people would object. The answer is painfully simple: because law enforcement presence has long been used in America to discourage unwanted people from voting.

Not to protect elections. Control them.

During Jim Crow, intimidation was often psychological before it became physical. Officers stood near entrances. White citizens took photographs. Names were written down. Questions were asked loudly enough for everybody else in line to hear. The goal was not merely arrest. The goal was humiliation. The goal was fear. The goal was to make people decide that voting simply cost too much.

And let me say this plainly: federal immigration agents do not symbolize safety to immigrant communities. They symbolize raids, deportation, detention centers, separated children, midnight knocks, and disappeared neighbors.

People in Washington know this. That is exactly why the idea is dangerous.

You do not place armed immigration authority near polling stations unless you understand the chilling effect it creates. A grandmother who is a legal citizen may stay home simply because her undocumented grandson lives with her. A young Latino voter may avoid the polls because he fears being questioned. A Muslim family may decide silence is safer than participation.

Fear spreads faster than policy. That is what America keeps forgetting.

Some readers will accuse me of exaggeration. But I lived through and experienced enough to watch this country repeat sins it swore it had already repented. Every generation believes democracy is sturdier than it really is. It’s not.

Democracy survives only as long as ordinary citizens believe they can approach the ballot box without fear of government intimidation.

The moment fear enters that space, something sacred begins dying.

What terrifies me most is how casually these conversations are now happening. We are discussing armed federal presence near elections as though this were a normal political debate. Fifty years ago, Americans would have recognized immediately how dangerous this sounded.

Now people shrug.

That is how nations drift toward authoritarianism. Not all at once. Slowly. Quietly. One normalized outrage after another. First comes the rhetoric. Then comes the fear. Then comes the silence. Then comes the surrender.

I buried too many of my freedom fighter friends to stay quiet while America plays games with voting rights again. I have stood in churches where old men still carried scars from police beatings tied directly to voter registration efforts. I have spoken with women who were fired from jobs for attempting to vote. I have listened to stories of bodies found hanging from trees because somebody dared believe democracy included them, too.

So no, I will not calmly dismiss this moment, because history whispers before it screams, and what I hear whispering right now sounds disturbingly familiar.

The presence of ICE or Border Patrol near polling stations may begin as “security.” But history warns us that government power, once normalized around elections, rarely retreats peacefully. It expands. It tests limits. It searches for new targets.

That is why every American, regardless of party, should reject this path now. Not later. Now. Once citizens associate voting with fear, democracy is no longer functioning freely. It is surviving on borrowed time.

Peter Jerome Johnson, was the youngest staff member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An alum of Southern University, he founded the Peter Johnson Institute on Nonviolence.

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Black History

COMMENTARY: The Basis of Freedom: Reclaiming Land as an Act of Liberation

AFRO-AMERICAN – WASHINGTON — Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III discusses the importance of land ownership for the Black community, drawing on the teachings of Malcolm X and Queen Mother Audley Moore.

Published

3 weeks ago

July 15, 2026

bpusa-syndication

By Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III

I often look to our Ancestors to guide my service to the Black community today. They connect me to the movement that has been and is ongoing. Recently, I have been reflecting on two such inspiring Ancestors: Malcolm X and Queen Mother Audley Moore.

Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III is a community organizer, local business leader and founder of the Black Church Food Security Network. This week, he speaks on the importance of land ownership for members of the Black community. Headshot Credit: Courtesy photo. Stock hands photo : Unsplash / Gabriel Jimenez

These two leaders at the vanguard of Pan-Africanism and the reparations movement understood the importance of securing land to build power. As Malcolm X said, “Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice and equality.” Queen Mother Moore, in a 1975 speech, declared, “We believe African captives in the USA will not have freedom until they have land of their own.”

Through their wisdom and the examples of so many others, we see how Black-owned land is a source of cultural memory and spiritual grounding. When we hold land, we find freedom.

I learned this firsthand through my great-grandparents’ lives “down the country” in rural Virginia. That land was a respite of sorts from the ravages of racial capitalism found in the city. It was an oasis amid a society that burdens Black people in so many ways. The whole family benefited from having significant landholdings to care for themselves. There was pride in self-sufficiency.

Economic sovereignty joins these attributes that land gives us. Since Black people have lost land — due to racial violence, the discriminatory impact of “heirs’ property” and exclusion from banking and farm programs — our overall wealth has decreased. According to the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, Black people owned 16 to 19 million acres of rural land in 1910, compared to less than 3 million acres today.

This is partly why I founded The Black Church Food Security Network. Pairing Black farmers with churches who own land ties together food justice, community and freedom. While food pantries and food drives are necessary efforts to fulfill an immediate need for those who experience food insecurity, they are not enough. Securing land, infrastructure and the means of production is the key to overcoming food apartheid in our communities. It must also be a primary component of reparations.

African leaders, led by President John Dramani Mahama of Ghana, recently coordinated a United Nations resolution that finally declared that the trafficking of enslaved Africans was the “gravest crime against humanity,” urging the need for reparations as the next step. There is no peace in the world, leaders said, without healing and reparative justice for Africans across the diaspora.

This closely echoes the words of Brother Malcolm; he said our redress should be seen as a violation of human rights, and now the global record acknowledges it as such.

Though further support and action is still required, the UN resolution marks an important step towards the goals of our Ancestors. Queen Mother Moore long advocated for “the long overdue debt of forty acres and two mules, repay in land.” Malcolm X similarly strongly advocated for reparations for land for Black Americans, as the U.S. government has shown is possible.

Both of these leaders sought to bring the issues of land and justice in front of the UN. Now that those issues are there, we hold the hope of progress.

As Queen Mother Moore asserted, our spirits were never removed from Africa. We are still connected to that land and heritage. We have achieved much, but reparations — through land and other means — are required to be truly free from exploitation.

All roads lead back to land ownership. Colonizers erroneously see land as a portal to access resources, from precious minerals, to oil, timber and even people. For the rest of us, land signals security and communal self-reliance.

So, farmers, churches and communities continue working hand-in-hand. This is the unfinished work of our Ancestors. It is up to us to continue their legacy of liberation through collective land ownership.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.

The post The basis of freedom: Reclaiming land as an act of liberation appeared first on AFRO American Newspapers.

Based on reporting by Afro-American – Washington.

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Arts and Culture

East Oakland COGIC Celebrates Re-Dedication

Keynote speaker Bishop Nathaniel Bullock, prelate of California Northwest Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction (CNEJ) reminisced on 51 years of friendship with Clifton prior to preaching “This Church Was Built to Last.” Bullock cited biblical scriptures from Matthew 16, Hebrews 13, Isiah 54, and John 10.

Published

1 month ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Celebrating the East Oakland COGIC Rededication are (fromleft to right) Supt. James Manning, Supt. LaRonn Gray, Pastor L.J. Jennings, first lady Melissa Clifton, Pastor Mark A. Clifton Sr., Pastor Aaron Macklin, Bishop Nathaniel Bullock, Dr. Billy Dixon, Pastor Tyrone Duckett, Pastor Willie Haynes, Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Parker, Pastor Wade Harper, Pastor Norris Sheppard, Supt Danny Stevens, Supt. David Houston and Pastor Matthew Levy. Photo by Carla Thomas.

By Carla Thomas

East Oakland’s Church of God in Christ (EOCOGIC) celebrated a spirit-filled re-dedication service marked by reverence, music, and community unity as clergy and congregants gathered to honor the church’s continued mission and legacy on Sunday, June 7.

Pastor Wade Harper served as master of ceremony, with opening prayer led by aspiring missionary Bridget Clifton-Foster, setting a reflective tone for the gathering. Elder-in-training Arnold C. Armstrong followed with a reading of the Holy Scriptures, grounding the congregation in the Word.

Missionary Otena Brown delivered the greeting and call to worship, praise was led by Pastor Matthew Levy, interim jurisdictional minister of music. Choir selections included “We Worship You,” “Can’t Stop Praising His Name,” and “Come On and Testify.”

Clifton-Foster presented “The Occasion,” offering insight into the significance of the re-dedication and the church’s continued growth. She explained how the church had endured a flood ruining the main sanctuary, leaving congregants to meet in the social hall.

The newly renovated space included comfortably cushioned chairs, replacing the traditional church pews.

Superintendent James Manning II led the offering, followed by brief clergy representations that reflected the broader faith community’s support. Local pastors gave EOCOGIC’s leaders Pastor Mark Clifton, Sr. and his wife, First Lady Melissa Clifton.

Bullock cited biblical scriptures from Matthew 16, Hebrews 13, Isiah 54, and John 10.

“This church (EOCOGIC) will last because God’s reflection surrounds it,” said Bullock.

The event also celebrated Clifton’s elevation to the role of administrative assistant to Bishop Bullock.

CNEJ’s Supervisor of Women, Mother Ada Stevens, said, “God is good and will bless us if we continue to do the will of the Lord.”

The service continued with prayers of dedication and elevation, symbolizing a renewed commitment to faith and service. Melissa J. Clifton extended words of gratitude to the committee and all who contributed to the occasion. “We are so grateful for all the love and support,” she said.

A proclamation from the office of Mayor Barbara Lee, thanked the Cliftons and the EOCOGIC congregation for their community impact and legacy.

Superintendent Mark Anthony Clifton, Sr. closed the service with final remarks naming the church musical director Pastor Matthew Levy as his new special assistant.