For the moment, at least, employers are still mostly free to decide whether or not to employ persons with body modifications not in line with their desired corporate image. At least, kind of free:
“There is a lot of employee activism,” said Laurel A. Van Buskirk, a New Hampshire lawyer who has written extensively about body modification and the law. “And because the cost of defending these cases is quite big, it makes employers a little uncomfortable when they start delving into that sphere.”
(Guy Trebay, “Tattoos Gain Even More Visibility”, New York Times, Sept. 25). Earlier here, here, here, etc.
2 Comments
I think “kind of free” is still overly optimistic. There are plenty of settlements of religious discrimination and failure-to-accommodate claims brought by members of the Church of Body Modification, practitioners of Kemeticism, and such.
Engineers often wear jeans and t-shirt to the job. 40 years ago, a white shirt, tie and shirt protector were de rigueur.
The article makes a good point about problems arising from tattoo subjects (or even the tattoos themselves) becoming unfashionable. In the meantime, I wonder how the prison population is going to advertise its bad-to-the-bone nature after their current scheme becomes commonplace.