Time Essay: The Sensible Limits of Non-Discriminiation

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Item 2: The young man who was disappointed at the boutique lodged his complaint with the San Francisco human rights commission. Because the complainant failed to follow through, the perplexed commission did not decide officially whether a ladies' clothing store has the right to refuse a man permission to try on its merchandise on the premises. Questions: Can anyone in the real world take such an issue seriously? Should the drive against sexist discrimination lead to the negation of all social differentiations between the sexes? No was the answer hinted at in Portland, Ore., by the civil rights division of the state labor department; the division informed a worried bar owner that, well, yes, he was within his rights in refusing to allow his transvestite patrons the privilege of using the ladies' room.

Item 3: Any habitually anxious air traveler can imagine the concern of the airline that requested a Boston-based stewardess to quit draping herself in ceremonial voodoo jewelry while working. Still, her religion so attached her to the artifacts that she resisted the request with a complaint to the Massachusetts commission against discrimination. Unfortunately, the issue she presented was left muddled: the airline compromised, permitting her to wear her voodoo jewelry with half sho"wing and the other half concealed. Questions: Is there not some limit to an individual's right to insist on private taste in dress while working for an employer doing business with the public? Where was fair play most faulted in the case of a New York City woman who charged discrimination against a restaurant that fired her after she refused (in obedience to her Pentecostal church's dictates) to wear the required uniform slacks? In her dismissal? Or in her acceptance of a job whose necessities she could not possibly fulfill?

Such far-out cases are cropping up more and more frequently. In Dallas, a busty woman felt that an employer unfairly discriminated by discouraging her from wearing a revealing tank top while tolerating this garb on women employees not so well endowed. In North Carolina, two career Marines charged that the Marine Corps unconstitutionally discriminated when it discharged them for being chronically overweight. Surprisingly, as though a fighting force no longer retained the right to prescribe fitness standards, the Corps backed down and reinstated them. Many such cases clearly fall beyond the frontier of the ridiculous. It is amazing, if laughable, that a young woman in New York City charged sexist discrimination when the Yankees turned her down for a job—bat girl—that would have required her presence in the men's locker room. And where, if anywhere, are the merits of the argument advanced by the lefthanded postal clerk in Kentucky who charged that the U.S. Postal Service discriminated against southpaws by setting up its filing cases for the convenience of righthanded clerks?