Fourth Circuit revives "as applied" claim challenging grooming policy

The Fourth Circuit yesterday in Booth v. State of Maryland, Dept. of Public Safety and Correctional Services, No. 02-1657 (4th Cir. Apr. 30, 2003), reversed a grant of summary judgment in favor of a state police department that disciplined an officer for wearing his hair in dreadlocks, a hairstyle that violated the department's grooming policy.

The plaintiff officer asserted a claim under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 that the defendants' application of the grooming policy to him violated his constitutional right to practice his religion (Rastafarianism) under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and other various state and federal constitutional claims. The district court dismissed the Section 1983 claim, holding that because the plaintiff did not also assert a Title VII claim, it could not grant the requested relief. The Fourth Circuit disagreed and reversed a summary judgment in the department's favor on the Section 1983 claim, holding that although the policy was facially neutral, the plaintiff made out a viable "as applied" challenge to the defendants' application of the policy to him.

Despite some language in footnote 6 of Hughes v. Bedsole, 48 F.3d 1376, 1383 n.6 (4th Cir. 1995) (stating, without citation, that the plaintiff could not "bring an action under Section 1983 for violation of her Fourteenth Amendment rights because [she] originally could have instituted a Title VII cause of action"), Title VII claims can coexist alongside Section 1983 claims. See Keller v. Prince George's County, 827 F.2d 952, 957 (4th Cir. 1987) and Beardsley v. Webb, 30 F.3d 524, 526-27 (4th Cir. 1994).