Religious Discrimination in North Carolina
Posted by Tamara
After 9/11, there have been several court cases involving religious discrimination, specifically against Muslims. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination against an employee due to their religion, race, sex, color or national origin in all aspects of employment. This means that these factors cannot be a deciding factor in hiring, firing, advancement, training, discipline and benefits.
The law mandates that North Carolina employers make “reasonable accommodations” for a worker’s religious beliefs as long as they are “sincerely held”. This means that an employee cannot use religion as a way to get more leave. For example, a worker cannot claim to be Jewish for Yom Kippur, and then demand time off for a Christian holiday.
Reasonable accommodations can involve several different things, including changing an employee’s hours, dress code or uniform. A hospital, for instance may grant a Jewish employee time off for Rosh Hashanah, but since they operate 24/7, may require the employee to work on Christmas Day instead. Other businesses may simply grant the leave, or provide the worker with an additional unpaid day off.
In the case of an Islamic woman in Phoenix, the discrimination applied to the dress code. The woman was an employee of Alamo car rental and was fired for refusing to remove her scarf. Her supervisor had previously approved the scarf, which bore the Alamo logo, but after 9/11 she was fired. The court ruled that amending the dress code to allow the scarf was a reasonable accommodation, and awarded the woman $250,000.
Another case of religious discrimination occurred in Pennsylvania. Two Islamic men worked for a local government that required male employees to be clean-shaven. These two men sued after being disciplined for not shaving their beards. The judge ruled that amending the dress code to allow the beards was a reasonable accommodation in this case. He added, however, that in cases where the beards could pose a safety or health risk to the employees and other workers, the company had every right to forbid them.
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