The Supreme Court of The United States (SCOTUS) will be delivering rulings, on previously argued cases, all week. Today, two rulings announced.

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♦  8-1 EEOC wins suit filed against Abercrombie and Fitch on behalf of Muslim woman who sought discrimination protection -based on religion as the qualifying protected category- claiming disqualification from employment because she wore a headscarf.
Ridiculously Abercrombie argued their side of the case based on the applicant never “requesting a religious accommodation“. Justice Scalia informed the business the applicant did not need to be specifically denied a requested accommodation in order to be discriminated; the applicant merely needed to prove their employment disqualification was due to their religious belief.

…”An applicant need only show that his need for an accommodation was a motivating factor in the employer’s decision”…  ~ Scalia

This was really a no-brainer win for religious freedom and employment eligibility.
♦  In a second ruling SCOTUS ruled in favor of a man who was arrested and convicted for making threats on Facebook. The basic reasoning for the court overturning the conviction was a lack of “standard” in the government’s position of “threat”.
SCOTUS ruled you cannot merely apply the ‘common man’ or ‘reasonable person’ threshold to the removal of liberty through speech. The government definition of “threat” is not defined well enough.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday in favor of a Pennsylvania man who posted several violent messages on Facebook and was convicted under a federal threat statute. The Court held that the standard used to convict him was too low.
The Court said that it wasn’t enough to convict him based solely on how a reasonable person would regard his communications as a threat. The Court left open what standard should be used.
“Our holding makes clear that negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.
The ruling marks the first time the Court addressed the implications of free speech on social media. It is a narrow ruling and the Court did not address the larger constitutional issue. (more)

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