The simple answer is yes, provided that it doesn’t impact somebody’s sincerely held religious beliefs or have a dispirit impact on a particular group of protected class individuals. I can give you an example. There are some religions that in fact, there is one in particular. It’s called the Church of Body Modification and it’s questionable and in some cases have found that that’s a religion and some others and the basic tenant of the Church of Body Modification is that we need to have body piercings.

And there was a relatively famous case involving Costco, where the individual was fired because they refused to take out their facial piercings and they said it was because, you know, I’m a member of the Church of Body Modification. Costco said sorry, we have an appearance policy and it violates our appearance policy that you have to be clean, neat and no body piercings. And the court in that case said well, you know, we’re not quite sure if the Church of Body Modification is a real religion or not, but even if it were, Costco can enforce grooming type rules.

Cases subsequent to that have questioned whether that kind of rationale would actually work for a more established religion, but if you have a religious belief and it’s sincerely held and it’s not an undue hardship for the organization and doesn’t have more than a de minimis cost to the organization the organization has to try to accommodate those religious beliefs.

Another example would be if somebody had a tattoo of some religious significance on their body. They may say well gee, I need to have that because it’s part of my religious beliefs. The employer could say well that’s great, you can have it, but you have to cover it up during the course of the workday. Grooming, that’s another one. If somebody has a dress – a particular dress that they have to wear – wear a burka – unless there are safety issues an employer typically has to accommodate those kinds of religious requirements.

So generally the basic answer is yes, you can prohibit tattoos and body piercings, unless it gets into the category of religious beliefs or it have a dispirit impact on a particular protected class.