On your mark…get set…get ready…GO!!!

Any minute you can expect some far-right conservative talkers, far-right writers and those who’ve seemingly to try and insult and provoke Islamic extremists to start warning about Sharia law coming to the United States due to the latest Supreme Court ruling But, then, some of them don’t know real Sharia law from a show curtain. A landmark decision:

The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 on Monday that retailer Abercrombie & Fitch may have violated workplace discrimination law when it turned down a Muslim job applicant because she wore a hijab, even though her religious beliefs never came up in the interview.

Samantha Elauf, the job seeker at the center of the case, applied for a sales position at an Abercrombie children’s store in Oklahoma in 2008. Despite her high marks in the interview, Elauf didn’t land the job because her headscarf ran afoul of Abercrombie’s employee “look policy,” which bars hats and promotes the retailer’s preppy brand. Elauf sued with the help of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Civil rights law requires that employers accommodate workers’ religious beliefs in the workplace, and forbids them from firing or not hiring someone because of those beliefs. But Abercrombie argued that it couldn’t have known to make such an accommodation because Elauf, who was 17 at the time, never requested one.

The majority of justices didn’t buy that argument, reversing an earlier appeals ruling in Abercrombie’s favor. They said that whether or not Abercrombie had firm knowledge of Elauf’s need for an accommodation was not relevant — only whether her headscarf was a “motivating factor” in their decision not to hire her. (In Elauf’s case, an Abercrombie manager had correctly assumed that Elauf was Muslim, and that she would regularly wear the hijab on the job.)

“Motive and knowledge are separate concepts,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority. “[A]n employer who acts with the motive of avoiding accommodation may violate [the law] even if he has no more than an unsubstantiated suspicion that accommodation would be needed.”

And, of course, you can guess on the lone dissent — the almost predictable (silent) justice:

The ruling sends Elauf’s case back to the lower court for further consideration. Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone dissent, penning an opinion that partially concurred with the majority.

In a statement, Abercrombie noted that the Supreme Court ruling did not find that the company discriminated against Elauf, only that Elauf can pursue her claim in court. The company said it is considering its next steps in the case, and that it is committed to “an open-minded and tolerant workplace environment.”

“We have made significant enhancements to our store associate policies, including the replacement of the ‘look policy’ with a new dress code that allows associates to be more individualistic; changed our hiring practices to not consider attractiveness; and changed store associates’ titles from ‘Model’ to ‘Brand Representative’ to align with their new customer focus,” the company said.

Well, THIS certainly didn’t take long:

Also:

1. To clarify for those who may be confused, Sharia law is not this:

2. To find out what really constitutions Sharia law and see how the phrase has been kicked around just read as many of these stories as you can. (But, then, there are those who fell don’t need to read any of these because they already KNOW they learned “the truth” from what their favorite talk show host, or blogger, or cartoon contest organizer has said or implied).

Supreme Court photo: Rob Crandall / Shutterstock.com

JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief

Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.

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