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In 1973, George Steinbrenner, the then-owner of the Yankees issued a facial hair policy that still stands. Steinbrenner reportedly brought this into effect after seeing players with hair long enough to cover their numbers during the game. The official policy states: “All players, coaches and male executives are forbidden to display any facial hair other than moustaches (except for religious reasons), and scalp hair may not be grown below the collar. Long sideburns and ‘mutton chops’ are not specifically banned.” In recent times this draconian policy has been questioned, with people asking for a change.

In 2017, the construction firm Mears Group banned its workers from sporting beards citing reasons of health and safety. The Group said that the no-beard policy would help the company’s workers wear dust masks on their face effectively. The only exceptions were for medical or religious reasons, but the company requested that a certificate be provided to support the claim. Immediately after the ban, Britain’s biggest union Unite termed the new nationwide regulation as “penny-pinching stupidity”.

In 2018, the American supermarket chain relaxed its beard policy of many decades and said that it would allow its store employees to wear beards. The amendment came into effect after a 2015 petition seeking a change in the company’s clean-chin policy garnered over 20,000 signatures. On a related note, in 2017, Publix was sued for firing a new hire over his dreadlocks, after the employee declined to cut his hair because of his Rastafarian faith.

In 2012, after nearly 60 years of clean-shave policy, Walt Disney Co eliminated its facial hair ban and said that the company’s employees at its two US theme-park resorts — including its over 60,000 workers at Walt Disney World — could grow beards or goatees. Disney’s new policy restricts any facial hair to no more than a quarter of an inch in length and requires any chin whiskers to be wellgroomed. The policy changed after years of careful research. Walt Disney Co began to allow moustaches in 2000.

In 2018, three years after the US government sued the UPS for unlawful employment practices, America’s largest package delivery company agreed to pay $4.9 million to employees who had been discriminated at work because of their non-compliance with the company’s facial-hair policy, stating that employees who interact with customers cannot have hair longer than collar-length or facial hair below the lips.