FedEx relents on mandatory 'leave' over cross

Cross banned by FedEx

A FedEx employee who this week was ordered onto an "administrative leave" for wearing a Christian cross to work has been told she can return to her job – with her cross.

"They called me earlier. I can go back to work tomorrow. I get to wear my cross," Lisa Graves told WND today. "Actually I'll find out what's going on [when I go in]."

She said the company volunteered to pay her for the time she was banished from the office, but the policy still is a concern since the company interpreted it as banning the cross.

The case involving Graves developed in the Springfield, Mo., region where the company has several stores.

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She explained earlier this week to KY3 Television there that she was approached by her supervisor and given the option of hiding the cross or being placed on leave for the dress code violation.

A statement released by the company at the time said, "Our team member is still employed with the FedEx office and is on leave for not complying with our dress code until she comes into compliance. She signed the code upon hiring and at least three times since, including in the last 30 days.

"Her administrative leave is attributed to being out of uniform for multiple months. There are personal insignia limitations in the dress code but religious exceptions are given when requested and validated."

Graves said she wasn't told about any "exceptions," but that she was never granted one.

The company policy states that banned items of jewelry include "political" and "personal" insignias. Graves told the television station she had no idea a cross was considered a "personal insignia."

She's worked in the Springfield office for more than two years, and explained to station reporters she loves her work but loves her Christian beliefs even more.

"To hide that would be a conscious act of denying Christ and my faith," she told the station.

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She reported she was told last week by a supervisor she could not keep visible her cross necklace. Then this week she was approached again.

"I was asked by my immediate supervisor to hide it again and I told them I couldn't do that. I wouldn't do that," she said.

"It worries me. I have a family. I'm a single mother," she said then. She said the necklace will remain an issue.

"I can't find peace in putting this away so as to not offend someone else," she said.

A company spokeswoman told WND that the company had decided to allow the cross if it was on a shorter chain so that it would be against Graves' throat, rather than in front of her uniform shirt.

The spokeswoman also said there was an issue over the type of pants worn, and that was resolved, too.

Graves said she hopes that the company is abandoning the policy, not simply making a one-time exception.

Graves' case also hearkens back to an almost-identical case that still is ongoing in the United Kingdom.

There, an appeal has been launched over a rule imposed by British Airways on employees allowing Muslims to wear a hijab, Jews to wear skullcaps, Sikhs to wear religious bracelets but banning a Christian woman from wearing a tiny silver cross necklace.

Nadia Eweida (Courtesy London Daily Mail)

Nadia Eweida is attempting to overturn an employment tribunal's decision that the airline's actions were not religious discrimination.

WND previously reported on the case that began in 2006 when Eweida was sent home from work after refusing to remove the cross because BA officials claimed it violated their dress code.

According to a recent report from the Christian Institute,  a charity committed to upholding the truths of the Bible, Eweida is represented in court by Karon Manghan, Queen's Counsel.

Manghan said Eweida "wished at the material times to wear a small, plain, silver cross visibly as a manifestation of her beliefs and personal expression of her faith."

British Airways, she added, "permitted adherents of other religious faiths to express their beliefs through certain visible symbols, such as the Sikh bracelet, the Jewish skull cap and the Muslim hijab."

The airline argued that wearing the cross was Eweida's choice, but it was not required of her Christian faith.

Ingrid Simler, the legal counselor for the airline, said, "Ms. Eweida reflects her religious belief in a way similar to the way people wear symbols for … gay rights – that it reflects their core beliefs but it has nothing to do with religion."

Eweida, a Heathrow check-in worker who is a Coptic Christian, later was returned to her position when the airline loosened its regulations. But the appeal followed when the Reading Employment Tribunal concluded the airline was allowed to ban a cross pendant that is visible.

The tribunal's opinion said other symbols such as turbans and bangles cannot be concealed and so are allowed.

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