Opinion ID: 152022
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facts Carmen Sharpe-Allen

Text: Carmen Sharpe-Allen began wearing the khimar and overgarment that make up the hijab when she converted to the Muslim faith by taking her shahada, nearly a decade before she became a GEO employee. JA 37, 39. Sharpe-Allen wore her full hijab to her November, 2004 interview for a position as a medication nurse at the prison. As a medication nurse, she would be required to visit the cell-blocks within the secure area of the prison on a daily basis. According to the dress code on record in the prison at that time, scarves were not allowed within the prison past a certain security station. Yet that policy appeared not to be enforced, as Sharpe-Allen's practice of wearing a khimar posed no obstacle for her in getting hired. During the interview, she inquired about whether she would be allowed to wear her religious attire in her new position, because she wasn't willing to compromise wearing her khimar. JA 43. The prison dress code required all medical staff members to wear matching scrubs to work, in purple and teal green. JA 43, 209. Because Sharpe-Allen did not own overgarments in the colors of the medical uniform, she told the interviewer, I would be willing to wear the scrubs, but definitely wasn't compromising my khimar. JA 43. Her interviewer told her that she could wear her khimar, but he would have to ask someone else whether she could wear an overgarment instead of medical scrubs. JA 44. She was offered the job at the interview, and accepted it on the spot. JA 44. Because Sharpe-Allen agreed to wear the uniform medical scrubs with her khimar, no further inquiry was made about the possibility of wearing an overgarment. JA 44. In 2005, Sharpe-Allen became a chronic infectious disease nurse in the prison. JA 48-49. In this new position, Sharpe Allen was no longer required to go cell-to-cell and began working almost exclusively in the infirmary. JA 49. She would only go to cells if she needed to check the results of inmates' tuberculosis tests. JA 49. Throughout her employment at GEO, she continued to wear her khimar. Sharpe-Allen's khimar posed no safety threat during the time that she was required to go cell-to-cell on a daily basis. Only later, when she was mostly working in an office setting without prisoner interaction, did Nardolillo and Holm claim that her khimar was a so dangerous that it could no longer be worn.