A Muslim woman working at an Abercrombie store in Oklahoma was asked to remove her head scarf, called a hijab, while on the clock.  She refused and is now engaged in a lawsuit with the company citing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which states that an employer must reasonably accommodate employees’ religious practices.

A woman took her autistic sister shopping at an Abercrombie store in Mall of America but was told she could not accompany her sister to the dressing room to assist her with trying on clothes.  The company was fined $115,264 for this discriminatory act against a disabled person.

A female employee with a prosthetic arm was hired at her local Abercrombie store but when they became aware of her disability, she was told she had to hide the artificial limb with a cardigan.  Her manager later banished her to work in the stock room away from the view of customers because her arm and the cardigan was “breaking the Look Policy.”  She brought a lawsuit and was awarded a settlement.

The U.S-based retailer had to pay $40 million dollars to settle a class-action suit in 2004 brought by black, Hispanic and Asian employees and applicants who accused the company of promoting white employees over all others.

According to reports, Abercrombie employs “visual managers” whose sole job is recruiting, hiring and ensuring its employees follow the retailer’s “style guide” when seeking out job applicants for Abercrombie employment.  This guide includes almost no text among the few dozen pages each with a full length view of a male and female of a number of different ethnicities.  These are supposed to show examples of the visual appearance each new hire should embody.  An ex-Abercrombie visual manager says, “And all of the minorities, by the way, are as white looking as a person can be without actually being Caucasian.”

Abercrombie employees are given a thick volume called a “Look Policy” which dictates in detail how employees are permitted to look, including the length of fingernails (no more than ¼” long) and hair, as detailed in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores (N.D. Cal. 4/9/13).  

In July 2013, Defenseur des Droits, France’s official human rights watchdog group, began an investigation of the company over hiring practices where the applicant is hired as a model, where appearance is part of the job description legally, but actually works as a salesperson, where appearance isn’t a part of the job description.  Due to Abercrombie losing discrimination lawsuits in the United States and Britain in the past, this latest accusation seems to fit right in with Abercrombie CEO Mike Jeffries’ vision for his stores:

“[Sex and sexual attraction are] almost everything.  That’s why we hire good-looking people in our stores.  Because good-looking people attract other good-looking people, and we want to market to cool, good-looking people.  We don’t market to anyone other than that.

In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids.  Candidly, we go after the cool kids.  We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends.  A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong.  Are we exclusionary?  Absolutely.  Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny.  But then you become totally vanilla.  You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody either.”

In direct contradiction to its CEO’s exclusionary stance on appearances, Abercrombie’s official website describes the retailer’s very different explanation of their commitment to diversity:

“At Abercrombie& Fitch, we are firmly committed to increasing and utilizing the diversity of our associates and management team across the organization.  Those differences are supported by a culture of inclusion, so that we better understand our customers, capitalize on the talents of our workforce and have an inclusive mindset that values every dimension of diversity.

Diversity is about who you are as an individual – what’s seen and unseen.  It also includes the rich differences between individuals such as race, gender, family, sexual orientation, work experience, physical ability, and religion.

Inclusion is about embracing those differences, and thoughtfully and enthusiastically enabling those differences to equally contribute.”

You have a right to work in an environment free of discrimination based on your disability, religion, age, race, gender and other bases under the law.  If you are concerned about your employer’s hiring practices or concerned that the dress code/appearance policy may violate the law, Henrichsen Siegel can help.  We represent clients in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia, Florida and Georgia.

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