A San Mateo Muslim woman who was fired for refusing to remove her religious head scarf, or hijab, filed a lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Abercrombie & Fitch, her former employer.
SEE: Complaint in Intervention for Damages and Injunctive and Declaratory Relief for Employment Discrimination
http://www.cair.com/Portals/0/pdf/Khan-Complaint.pdf
The plaintiff, Hani Khan, is represented by the San Francisco Bay Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFBA) and the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center (LAS-ELC). The suit was filed in conjunction with a lawsuit filed by the San Francisco District Office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), on the same charges.Khan was fired from her job at a Hollister Co. store at the Hillsdale Mall location, after working there for four months in 2009-2010. When she was initially hired in October 2009, she was told her hijab would not be in conflict with the company's "look policy" so long as she wore it in company colors. Despite complying with this request, in February 2010 a District Manager and Corporate Human Resources Manager asked if she could remove her hijab while working. Khan was suspended and then terminated when she refused to comply with the request, and asserted her right to religious accommodation.
"When I was asked to remove my scarf after being hired with it on, I was demoralized and felt unwanted," said Khan. "Growing up in this country where the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion, I have felt let down."
Following her termination, Khan filed a complaint with the EEOC. In September 2010, the EEOC issued a determination that Khan was wrongfully terminated. Attempts to conciliate between the parties failed in January 2011.
"When we first received Ms. Khan's complaint, it was the explicitness of Abercrombie & Fitch's discriminatory demands which concerned us. They were both egregious and illegal," said Zahra Billoo, Executive Director of CAIR-SFBA. "For an employer to, point-blank, require an employee to relinquish their religious practice is a violation of our cherished civil rights laws."
"Abercrombie & Fitch cannot hide behind a "Look Policy" to justify violating Ms. Khan's civil rights. Their refusal to accommodate her wearing her hijab is not only unlawful, but un-American," said Araceli Martinez-Olguin, an LAS-ELC Staff Attorney.
Khan's lawsuit, which names Hollister Co. and its parent company Abercrombie & Fitch, seeks among other remedies an order to bring the defendants into compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. The requested order would bar Abercrombie & Fitch from discriminating against current or potential employees for refusing to remove their religiously mandated headscarves.
The lawsuit states: "Defendants' conduct as herein alleged violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. section 2000e-2(a)(1), which makes unlawful discrimination against employees on the basis of religion. The term 'religion' includes 'all aspects of religious observance and practice, as well as belief.'"
