{"id":2344,"date":"2010-08-04T17:45:10","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T17:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison.php"},"modified":"2010-08-04T17:45:10","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T17:45:10","slug":"appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","title":{"rendered":"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal appeals court has sided with a prison system whose policy forbids Muslim women employees from wearing headscarves on the job.<br \/>\nIn a 2-1 decision issued Tuesday (Aug. 3), the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the dispute a &#8220;close case&#8221; between the employees and The GEO Group, a private company that ran a prison in Delaware County, Penn.<br \/>\nBut the court&#8217;s majority upheld a lower court decision against the employees, who were represented by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.<br \/>\n&#8220;The EEOC has an enviable history of taking steps to enforce the prohibition against religious discrimination,&#8221; wrote Judge Dolores Sloviter. &#8220;On the other hand, the prison has an overriding responsibility to ensure the safety of its prisoners, its staff, and the visitors. A prison is not a summer camp and prison officials have the unenviable task of preserving order in difficult circumstances.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe three women &#8212; a nurse, an intake specialist and a correctional officer &#8212; sought an exception to a 2005 policy, arguing they had worn a head covering known as a khimar before the new dress code was instituted. The company cited safety concerns, such as the possible use of headgear to hide contraband or to strangle an employee.<br \/>\nIn a strongly worded dissent, Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a senior judge from the Ninth Circuit who heard the case, said Geo based its decision not to exempt the women on &#8220;hypothetical safety concerns&#8221; and did not adequately prove how an exemption would be a hardship.<br \/>\nHe said the majority &#8220;makes a shambles of our Title VII religious accommodation jurisprudence.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8212; Adelle M. Banks<br \/>\n<em> Copyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal appeals court has sided with a prison system whose policy forbids Muslim women employees from wearing headscarves on the job. In a 2-1 decision issued Tuesday (Aug. 3), the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the dispute a &#8220;close case&#8221; between the employees and The GEO Group, a private company&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal appeals court has sided with a prison system whose policy forbids Muslim women employees from wearing headscarves on the job. In a 2-1 decision issued Tuesday (Aug. 3), the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the dispute a &#8220;close case&#8221; between the employees and The GEO Group, a private company&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-08-04T17:45:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"aroan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) A federal appeals court has sided with a prison system whose policy forbids Muslim women employees from wearing headscarves on the job. In a 2-1 decision issued Tuesday (Aug. 3), the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals called the dispute a &#8220;close case&#8221; between the employees and The GEO Group, a private company&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2010-08-04T17:45:10+00:00","author":"aroan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison","name":"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-08-04T17:45:10+00:00","dateModified":"2010-08-04T17:45:10+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/08\/appeals-ourt-sides-with-prison#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Appeals Court Sides with Prison in Headscarf Case"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/c6e65092118456e72064bc1332984cfc","name":"aroan","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/f35\/f3587d75a20cb88f1c76fd277ee82fc5x96.jpg","caption":"aroan"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/aroan"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}