(RCR) Brian Walsh & Brian Grim–Religious Diversity Is Good for Business

…on Labor Day Americans should also be celebrating the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act’s most important and immediate effect was to help end racial segregation and race-based discrimination.

But the Civil Rights Act also reflected what Americans had learned through ugly episodes of hostility and discrimination against Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and others. Title VII of the Act prohibits religion-based discrimination in the workplace and requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious exercise unless doing so would cause “undue hardship.”

In a decision this summer involving clothier Abercrombie & Fitch and a young Muslim woman, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed Title VII’s strong protections for people of all faiths. The company denied employment to Samantha Elauf, a young Muslim American woman, because her religious headscarf violated the company’s “look” policy.

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