Islamic Garb in Public Employment in Europe and the US—From Integration to Accommodation to Anti-Discrimination

Abstract

According to a recent report by the Open Society Foundation (2018), one third of EU countries have national or local “bans” on Islamic garb. The report identified five common justifications for these restrictions: the imperative to provide security and counter terrorism, the drive for equality between men and women, the desire for homogeneity, the need for integration and assimilation, as well as the pursuit of neutrality and secularity. I argue that it is upon notions of integration and neutrality that we see important differences in the approach towards Islamic garb in public employment between Europe and the US: How can we explain these differences? I attend to this question by focusing on the American public employment sector as my case study. I analyze institutional action on Islamic garb in employment from the 1990s onward through an examination of laws, policies, guidelines/regulations, court decisions, and settlement agreements. In my discussion, I contrast the European need for integration and the pursuit of neutrality to that of religious accommodation in the US. Drawing from this discussion, I make several recommendations for the implementation of an accommodation approach in Europe that is based on principles of anti-discrimination.