[JURIST] The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) [advocacy website] on Wednesday filed a lawsuit [text] against United Parcel Services, Inc. (UPS) [official website] for their discriminatory employment policies. The complaint alleges that UPS’s employment policies have violated Section 703 of Title VII of the Civil Rights act of 1964 [text]. The specific policy addressed in the complaint keeps male employees from growing a beard below collar length with no exceptions for those who wear their beard based on religious beliefs. Not only have the appearance policies for those employees dealing directly with customers kept the company from hiring certain employees for their appearance, but it has also kept certain employees segregated from interacting with the public if they did not abide by the policy. The complaint states that attempts at conciliation between EEOC and UPS have failed. Robert D. Rose, the regional attorney for EEOC’s New York District Office stated in a press release [press release] that: “No person should be forced to choose between their religion and a paycheck, and EEOC will seek to put an end to that longstanding practice at UPS.” The press release further calls for any individual who may have been the victim of this policy to contact the EEOC. UPS is one of the largest package delivery systems in the nations and the company employer over 300,000 individuals nationwide.

The EEOC protects a workers’ right to employment without discrimination. Recently, the agency has challenged employers that discriminate against employees for religious reasons. Last month, the US Supreme Court [official website] ruled [JURIST report] 8-1 in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc. [SCOTUSblog materials] that Abercrombie & Fitch’s [corporate website] dress policy violated Title VII Section 703 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when the company denied a Muslim woman a job because she wears a head scarf for religious reasons.