Modesty Blaze

The worst lawsuit of the day comes courtesy of a South Bay Muslim teenager who claims that her employer violated her civil rights by ordering her to remove her Hijab. The employer? Abercrombie & Fitch: Muslim Goes To Feds Over Head-Scarf Firing

Hani Khan, 19, of Foster City said she was fired Monday at the Hollister clothing store at the Hillsdale Shopping Center. She was dismissed a week after a district manager visited the store, called her into a meeting and said she was not supposed to wear the scarf while at work, said Khan, who is of Indian and Pakistani descent.

A representative from human resources joined the meeting by phone, and Khan said she had been told that she was in violation of the store's "look policy."

"I thought it was quite unfair," Khan said in an interview. "It was really surprising, especially in the Bay Area, because everybody's so open-minded and accepting of everybody. It's really surprising to see blatant discrimination against someone who is of an Islamic state who is wearing a hijab."

Khan contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group. On Tuesday, the organization filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Abercrombie & Fitch, which operates Hollister stores.

Let's see. This girl is modest and devout enough to insist on wearing a headscarf, so she got a job at Abercrombie & Fitch, a retailer that is ... not known for its modesty or sympathy for the religiously devout. Makes sense! The linked article helpfully notes that Khan is a poli-sci major at the College of San Mateo, so there can't possibly a political motive behind this. The only thing more annoying than this lawsuit is knowing that her attorneys can obtain a large statutory fee award if their complaint succeeds.

The girl says that the store manager who hired her said that wearing the scarf was OK, so long as she wore the company colors. It was only when the dreaded "district manager" got involved that it turned out A&F may have had a problem. It's one of the basic employer-employee conflicts in retail: how do you make sure your employees are dressed appropriately. In A&F's case, you would think the answer would be: by making sure everyone is wearing A&F clothes. I wasn't aware that A&F sold Hijabs, so it seems appropriate to me that they would ask Khan to dress properly or get out. She wouldn't be the first kid to learn the valuable life lesson that your boss gets to tell you what to wear (within reason).

Then again, you have to wonder what A&F was thinking hiring this girl in the first place. What, there weren't other South Bay teenagers looking for a job at the mall? Maybe the Little Depression really is over.