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Dress Code in Maryland

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A female employee who is Muslim wants to wear a headscarf at work in Colorado. I say it’s not appropriate and doesn’t fit our dress code. Who is right?

There have been a number of court cases that have supported exceptions to the dress code, ruling that they are what are called “reasonable accommodations.”

To explain, the law requires employers to make what are called reasonable accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs or practices, provided those accommodations don’t cause undue hardship.

In short, court cases have supported an Islamic woman’s right to wear clothing that protects her modesty at work, including headscarves.

There was a case in 2002 in which a Phoenix rental car agency terminated an Islamic woman who would not remove her headscarf during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. When the woman filed a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), she was awarded $287,000. The money included a $250,000 penalty and back pay and lost wages.

The operative law here is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This federal law makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against workers because of their religion whether in firing, hiring, or working conditions.

As mentioned, dress code exceptions are almost always found to be reasonable accommodations. Two Muslim employees of a New Jersey town sued their employer, for example, because the dress code demanded that all men be clean-shaven. The men argued that they were required by their faith to wear beards, and they won the case.

What constitutes undue hardship? An expensive accommodation might be considered a hardship. The amount would depend on the size of the company. An adjustment of $2,000 a year might be undue hardship for a small company, but for a larger firm, $7,000 might be a reasonable accommodation.

Courts have supported employer dress codes in matters of public safety. For example, if the two bearded employees mentioned above had worked around open sparks, the beards might have constituted a fire hazard.

Employers and employees might consider working together to come up with alternatives to the dress code that work for all. For example, if employees wear uniforms, it might be possible to speak with the female worker to see what modifications might be possible. JH