 The European Court of Justice has ruled that companies can ban employees from wearing the Islamic headscarf, but only as part of prohibitions including other religious and political symbols. “An internal rule of an undertaking which prohibits the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign does not constitute direct discrimination,” the court said in a statement. “However, in the absence of such a rule, the willingness of an employer to take account of the wishes of a customer no longer to have the employer's services provided by a worker wearing an Islamic headscarf cannot be considered an occupational requirement that could rule out discrimination.” 
 
 The Luxembourg-based court found that a headscarf ban may also constitute “indirect discrimination” if people adhering to a particular religion or belief, such as Muslims, are put at a particular disadvantage. Christophe Ena / AP 
 
 The judges said a workplace ban on visible symbols would not be discriminatory if it covered “any manifestation of beliefs without distinction.” 
 
 There is a risk of indirect discrimination if certain groups were unfairly impacted, but this could be justified if the rule was “appropriate and necessary,” the judges notes. The Belgian woman had been working as a receptionist for G4S Secure Solutions, which has a general ban on wearing visible religious or political symbols, while the French claimant is an IT consultant who was told to remove her headscarf after a client complained. The court's advocate general recommended that companies should be allowed to prohibit headscarves as long as a general ban on other symbols was in place, theoretically applying to Sikh turbans, Jewish kippas and Christian crucifixes. The receptionist, Samira Achbita, was fired in 2006 after deciding she would wear an Islamic headscarf to work, “contrary to the position of neutrality G4S adopted in its contacts with its customers,” the ECJ said. “The supposed ‘neutrality’ is really discrimination, making the false claim that employers who allow staff to wear the headscarf are in some way not neutral.” 
 
 The ruling, which sets an EU-wide precedent, came a day before the Netherlands’ parliamentary elections, which have been dominated by issues of integration and identity.
– Fifteen judges on Europe's highest court ruled Tuesday on a case involving Muslim headscarves in the workplace, and the verdict did not come down in the headscarf-wearers' favor. CNNMoney reports that the European Court of Justice decided businesses not wanting to give an appearance of having any political, philosophical, or religious leanings can ask employees to keep to a dress code that doesn't include any such representative symbols or signs. Not allowing the two Muslim plaintiffs, as well as any other women, to wear the headscarf isn't discriminatory, the court notes, as long as symbols from other affiliations are similarly nixed. NBC News notes the ECJ's ruling applies to all 28 countries in the EU. One thing the new ruling doesn't allow: a worker forced to stop sporting a religious or political symbol just because a customer requests it—though if the company already has a ban in place, it wouldn't be discriminatory to make that request. Per the Guardian, this case revolved around an ex-receptionist for security firm G4S, pink-slipped in 2006 for not taking off her headscarf when asked, as well as a former design engineer for IT consultancy company Micropole, which fired her after a client said her headscarf "embarrassed" company staff during a visit. Francois Fillon, a conservative running for French president, hailed the decision as an "immense relief," per the Independent, noting it would bring "social peace," but the policy officer for the Open Society Justice Initiative says the decision could "exclude many Muslim women from the workplace." (Nike has a new hijab for athletes.)