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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
Discuss employment-law issues such as family leave, overtime, disabilities law, harassment, immigration and termination.
My company, a restaurant, has a discriminatory dress code policy in which male employees may not wear earrings, even as they heal. Males a re forced to romove them from their ears while on duty. Femal
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Forums » Topic Forums » Legal Forum » Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/15/1999 6:45 AM EDT
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Posts: 45
First: 6/15/1999 Last: 6/28/2006 |
Take it from an earring-wearing male employment attorney, you are out of luck on this. Why should this be so even if the employer's customer's-wouldn't-like-it reply is made up? Because gender-specific dress codes have not to date been found discriminatory (for the most part). Once you remove discrimination from the picture, employers can pretty much do as they please... (at least in at will states such as Massachusetts). |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/15/1999 7:17 PM EDT
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Posts: 20
First: 6/9/1999 Last: 3/7/2002 |
Dear Psycho,
I believe the following excerpt from a legal reference I have is what you have been looking for. Hopefully, this will give you the information you need to end your quest for information on this forum. When an employer's dress regulations differentiate between male and female employees, the charge often is made that the require constittues sex discrimination in violation of Title VII. However, dress standards that are applied equally to men and women generally are upheld. (See Batson V. Powell, 21 F. Supp.2d 56 (D.D.C. 1998): a dress code that applied the same standards to male and female employees did not have a disparate impact on female employees.) In addition, dress requirements that reflect current social norms typically have been unheld, EVEN WHEN THEY AFFECT ONLY ONE SEX. (See Carroll v. Talman Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n, 604 F.2d 1028 (7th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 929 (1980): employers do not have to apply idential dress or grooming standards to men and women where the differences are justified by social norms.) For example, in Fountain v. Safeway Stores, Inc. 555 F.2d 753 (9th Cir. 1977), the courd did not find a violation of Title VII because a grocery chain required that male employees wear a tie. POLICIES PROHIBITING MALE EMPLOYEES FROM WEARING EARRINGS, but allow women to wear them, also are generally upheld. (See Lockhart v. Louisiana-Pacific Corp., 795 P.2d 602 (Ore. Ct. App. 1990: an employer's rule prohibiting male employees from wearing facial jewelry on the job did not violate the Oregon Fair Employment Practices Act, which is patterned after Title VII.) See also Rathert V. Village of Peotone, 903 F.2d 510 (7th Cir. 1990). Dress codes that have NO BASIS in social customs, that differentiate SIGNIFICANTLY between men and women, or that impose a greater burden on women usually are not upheld. For example, in Carroll v. Talman Federal Savings & Loan Ass'n, 604 F.2d 1028 (7th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 445 U.S. 929 (1980): the employer's policy requiring all female tellers, office workers, and managerial employees to wear a uniform was found to be discriminatory because male employees in the same positions only were required to wear customary business attire. In O'Donnell v. Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse, Inc. 565 F. Supp. 263 (S.D. Ohio 1987), the employer discriminated by requiring female clerks to wear smocks, since male clerks were permitted to wear ordinary clothing. according to the court, the smocks were considered a uniform which was demeaning to the women because there is a natural tendancy to assume that the women in uniform have a lesser professional status than their male counterparts in normal business clothing. See also, Dept. of Civil Rights v. Sparrow Hospital Association, 377 N.W.2d 755 (Mich. 1985): a rule requiring female laboratory technologists to wear labl coats over street clothing was not justified, in spite of the employer's assertion that "patients were used to seeing males dressed like doctors and females dressed like nurses." If you plan to represent yourself in your quest to wear your earring(s) at work, good luck. If you plan to seek legal representation and file suit in court, may I suggest that you seek one of the lawyers who advertise on late night television. But remember, they get paid no matter how it turns out for you. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/15/1999 10:35 PM EDT
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Posts: 20
First: 6/12/1999 Last: 12/2/1999 |
Dear Sir,
I thank you. you are the FIRST to actually show absolutely any "proof" with substance. You did not whine and/or complain that, "The company has the right to set whatever dresscode they want." For that I compliment you. I will read over those cases and possibly be back. One never knows what one will find. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/16/1999 3:03 AM EDT
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Posts: 434
First: 6/14/1999 Last: 4/25/2001 |
The reason why we didn't feel a need to
offer "proof" is that the answer to your question is self evident to anyone who's been in HR for any period. As far as your comment on whining is concerned, you're unquestionably an expert. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/16/1999 6:29 AM EDT
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Posts: 11
First: 6/13/1999 Last: 1/7/2000 |
Look psycho, the comments on this bb were not potshots. The specific things I said were from observations concerning your demeanor during this entire thread. You did not listen to a repsresentative from a law firm. You argued with this attorney about case law, arguing that a judge had said such and such, but he was in the minority, so basically his opinion counts for nothing. You basically told HR people that they did not have a clue concerning their field of expertise. The EEOC said they would not take your case. That's saying "you do NOT have a case". My suggestion would be this, drop this whole thing. You will lose your greivance and will be out of a job. Why? Employers don't like people who try to tell them how to run their business. Ifyour employer really wanted to, he could find a LEGAL way to discharge you. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/16/1999 11:13 AM EDT
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Posts: 20
First: 6/12/1999 Last: 12/2/1999 |
Nork,
I thought this was a professional bulliten board. One where peoples questions were accepted as that... questions. My question was, for the most part, never answered. there was never anything there to back up your claims. Now there is. I find your attacks on my character to be most childish. i'm sure there is a seminar or something you could take to hep out with that little flaw in your personality. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/16/1999 11:25 AM EDT
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Posts: 20
First: 6/12/1999 Last: 12/2/1999 |
George,
I'm sure that they could find a legal way to fire me. I somehow doubt my direct managers would be the ones to do it though. That aside, I did not tell you you all knew nothing of your jobs. What I did do, was ask for the reasoning backing this discriminatory policy. (Yes, I know it's not discriminatory in the eyes of the law, yet. However it is discriminatory according to the dictionary. i.e. unequal treatment of two groups.) I have also re-read the entire thrtead, I saw nothing in my demeanor to be childish or immature. (Unless it was in specific response to "potshots") I merely asked for the reasoning. (It's flawed, legal or not.) AS for arguing with an attorney, he made some very veiled empty points. As for the Judge, just because he was disenting does not mean he doesn't know the law. And for the EEOC, that merely means they were not sure they could win the case. Belive it or not, some cases such as these have been sided with the plaintiff. (I sincerely wish I could find those cases.) the EEOC did not want to gamble this. (I was told this by the man on the phone.) And if I am put out of a job, it will probably be by those in the upper echelons, not my managerial team. But I somehow doubt even those in the upper echelon will take much notice of my arguments no matter how much I "rock the boat." As to your suggestion to drop it, that isn't how you get things changed. It is the underlying principle that truly bugs me. The fact that a dress code put out by the company dictates my actions and life style outside of work gets to me. Even more so since there is a group that does not suffer this limitation. |
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Male Ear Piercing, Bad?
posted at 6/20/1999 10:09 AM EDT
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Posts: 20
First: 6/12/1999 Last: 12/2/1999 |
I do not argue that the Law has found sex-specific dress codes to be non-discriminatory, however I ask: How can they say this is non-discriminatory when the Webster's Dictionary states the definition of discriminate as, "2. to make a difference in treatment or favor on a basis other than individual merit. <~ in favor of your friends> <~ against a certain nationality>?" I can not see how they got around an obvious case of differential treatment. Please explain, if indeed you, yourself, understad how they did this. |
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