It’s 2015, and still, so many work places require, in their uniforms, no unnaturally colored hair, piercings, or tattoos.

So what’s the deal? What about any of those features affects how that person works as an employee? Does a nose piercing mean that they’re lazy? Is a tattoo a sign that they don’t play well with team members? Does their purple hair show that they’ll be rude to customers/clients? Absolutely not.

We live in a day and age where it is, thankfully—in the U.S., illegal to fire someone based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. However, unfortunately, you can fire someone based on other aspects of their appearance.

Technically, you can legally fire someone for being too pretty, too ugly, too tall, to short, and more—as awful as that is. While obviously body modifications are a form of expression (where the former examples are features that people are born with) it shouldn’t even factor in to a work atmosphere. None of those things affects how that employee will perform as an employee.

Now, if you had an employee with tattoos, piercings, and wild colored hair who was terrible at their job and never did their work, by all means, fire them. But if they are a great employee who works hard and does their job well, why should the way they look even matter. You wouldn’t judge someone for having a hairstyle that was socially accepted as “preppy,” etc. so why is there a “wrong” or “unprofessional” way to express yourself? Ask yourself, why do we judge people by their looks? Why is one form of expression deemed acceptable while another is not?

There’s really no excuse for it. It’s 2015 already. Stop judging a book by its cover.