In October 2009, a 20-year-old woman named Hani Khan went to work for a Hollister Co. store in San Mateo, CA. Hollister is wholly owned by Abercrombie and Fitch.Khan is a Muslim who wears a hijab, a headscarf, required by her religion. Company officials told her it wasn't a problem so long as she wore ones in "company colors," which she did.
Yeah, "company colors."
See, Abercrombie and Fitch, under the leadership of CEO Mike Jeffries, who looks like some guy who has been obsessed with being "cool" ever since back in high school he couldn't get to second base with Mary Lou Billingstone because she thought he was kinda creepy, requires that employees dress in natural, "beachy" clothes such as jeans, flip-flops and a T-shirt.In fact, there is a very strict, almost micromanaging, dress code, complete with directions on how to roll jean cuffs, scrunch shirt sleeves above the elbow, and how many buttons women should open on their denim shirts. Three, in case you're curious.
Jeffries, by the way, is also the guy who got in hot water earlier this year when an old interview surfaced in which he said he just wanted to market to "cool, popular kids" and that "some people do not belong in our clothes."
The point is that, again, Hani Khan was told that her hijab was fine so long as the color was in line with the dress code.
Nonetheless, four months later, in February 2010, a district manager visited the store. A week later, Khan was told to stop wearing the hijab. When she said her religious beliefs prevented her from complying with the demand, and requested a religious accommodation, which the company insists is grants whenever possible, Khan was suspended. A week later, she was fired.The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that the chain had wrongfully fired her but the company refused to settle. So in June 2011, the Commission sued on her behalf.
The good news is that on September 3, US District Court Judge Yavonne Gonzalez Rogers granted a motion for summary judgment against Abercrombie, ruling that
Reasonable jurors could determine that by offering Khan one option - to remove her hijab despite her religious beliefs - Abercrombie acted with malice, reckless indifference or in the face of a perceived risk that its actions violated federal law.The judge also blew away the company's claims that accommodating her religious beliefs would create an "undue burden" on the company and hurt its "brand image," declaring that
[t]he evidence presented does not raise a triable issue that a hardship, much less an undue hardship, would have resulted from allowing Khan to wear her hijab.That is, the company's claim of a hardship, based entirely on "unsubstantiated opinion testimony of its own employees" and "generalized subjective beliefs or assumptions," was so weak it wasn't even worth the court's time to consider.
A trial to determine what back pay and damages Khan is owned and what the corporation must do to stop this from happening again to someone else will begin the end of September.
The best summary came from Araceli Martinez-Olguin, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center, which is representing Khan. Quoting,
Abercrombie prides itself on requiring what it calls "a natural, classic American style." But there is nothing American about discriminating against someone because of their religion.Indeed.
Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/hani-khan-victory_n_3894817.html
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Abercrombie-Fitch-sued-over-hijab-firing-2366495.php
http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/abercrombies-preppy-police-enforce-cuffs-sleeves-internal-do
http://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/12129-cair-sfba-las-elc-win-judgment-against-abercrombie-fitch-in-hijab-case.html
http://www.cair.com/images/pdf/MSJ_Order_Filed_09-03-131.pdf
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/09/hani-khan-victory_n_3894817.html
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