"Nonsense" from British Airways

The 'nonsensical case of the too small cross' is what this business ought to be called, when a novelist comes to write it up.  Miss Nadia Eweida has been a uniformed check-in clerk at British Airways.  The company suspended her on account of her insistence on wearing a small cross around her neck; this happened several weeks ago.  (Why it hadn't been an issue earlier in Miss Eweida's employment, I have no idea: I have a vague recollection, perhaps, that she changed churches?)   Sikh turbans and some version or another of the Muslim hijab are permitted to be worn by uniformed British Airways employees because concealing these--as the company expects Miss Eweida to conceal her cross beneath some article of clothing--is not "practical".  British Airways yesterday denied Miss Eweida's appeal of the original decision. 

Dr John Senamu, archbishop of York, the Church of England's second highest prelate, is irate:

In a dramatic intervention, Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu denounced BA's decision as "nonsense."  The broadside is the latest from the increasingly strident cleric, who has spoken out over Muslim veils and has launched an impassioned defence of the Queen and family values. ... Dr Sentamu said: "British Airways needs to look again at this decision and to look at the history of the country it represents, whose culture, laws, heritage and tradition owes so much to the very same symbol it would ban."  He joined a growing chorus of MPs, civil liberties campaigners and Muslims and Sikhs to condemn BA.

"The basis for the decision should not be "practicality", as BA suggests in its statement, but rather whether it impacts on Nadia's ability to do her job." "It is clear that Nadia's cross does not form an impediment to her ability to carry out her duties at the check-in counter." 

 
"Under BA's current reasoning, an employee who turned up to work wearing a three foot long cross must be allowed to wear it, because to hide such a cross under their uniform would be impractical."

 
"Yet in Nadia's case a cross of less than three inches is deemed a problem."

 
Dr Sentamu added: "For me, the Cross is important because it reminds me that God keeps his promises. This horrible instrument of torture now carries something other than the body of that man whom to me is a Saviour and to others is a prophet."


British Airways have offered Miss Eweida a different, non-uniformed job; I fail to see why they shouldn't change their policy: obviously, accommodation is already made for some religious additions to the sacred uniform, and it seems a small enough matter to redefine the cross suspended from a neckchain--which is presently 'jewellry'--to be 'a religious symbol'.  I am overlooking Mr Livingstone's support for Miss Eweida: under ordinary circumstances, his support of one side in a conflict is a sure sign that the opposite one is in the right; the exception, however, proves the rule.