A federal agency has sued the Chipotle restaurant chain, accusing it of religious harassment and retaliation after a manager at a Kansas location forcibly removed an employee’s hijab, which is worn by some Muslim women.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges that in 2021, an assistant manager at a Chipotle in Lenexa, Kansas, repeatedly harassed the employee by asking her to show her hair, even though she refused. After several weeks, the harassment culminated in her grabbing and partially removing her veil, according to the complaint.
The manager’s “offensive and persistent demands” that she remove her hijab, and her attempts to physically remove it, were “unwanted, intentional, severe, religiously based, and created a religiously hostile work environment,” the complaint alleges.
Chipotle’s chief corporate affairs officer, Laurie Schalow, said the company encourages employees to report concerns, including through an anonymous hotline.
“We have a zero tolerance policy for any form of discrimination and we have terminated the employee involved,” he said in an emailed statement.
The harassment began in July 2021, when the manager began asking the employee, who was 19 at the time, to remove her headscarf because he wanted to see her hair.
The lawsuit alleges that Chipotle violated federal civil rights laws that protect employees and job applicants from discrimination based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender and national origin.Youtube/KCTV5 News
According to the complaint, he demanded to see her hair at least 10 times within a month. He refused on each occasion, saying he wore it because of his religious beliefs.
The employee complained to another supervisor that the incident made him uncomfortable, but no further action was taken against the manager, the complaint said.
One night during the shutdown in August 2021, the manager allegedly reached out and pulled part of her veil from her head.
The next day, the employee gave him two weeks’ notice.
Chipotle did not schedule him for any shifts during those two weeks even though other non-Muslim employees who submitted their notices continued to be scheduled to work during that time, the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that Chipotle violated federal civil rights laws that protect employees and job applicants from discrimination based on religion, race, ethnicity, gender and national origin.
In its suit, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it wants Chipotle to institute policies that provide equal employment opportunities for workers of all religions and compensate those workers.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
