A federal agency has sued the eating place chain Chipotle, accusing it of spiritual harassment and retaliation after a manager at a Kansas location forcibly got rid of an employee’s hijab, a scarf worn by way of some Muslim ladies.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleged that during 2021, an assistant manager at a Chipotle in Lenexa, Kansas, many times pressured the worker by way of asking her to turn him her hair, in spite of her refusal. After a number of weeks, the harassment culminated in him grabbing and in part taking away her hijab, consistent with the criticism.
The manager’s “offensive and incessant requests” that she take away her hijab, and his try to bodily take it off, had been “unwelcome, intentional, severe, based on religion, and created a hostile working environment based on religion,” the complaint alleged.
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 discrimination of any kind and we have terminated the employee in question,” she mentioned in an emailed commentary.
The harassment started in July 2021, when the manager started asking the worker, who used to be 19 on the time, to take away her hijab as a result of he sought after to peer her hair. According to the criticism, he demanded to peer her hair a minimum of 10 occasions over the path of 1 month. She refused on each instance, pronouncing she wore it as a result of her spiritual ideals.
The worker complained to any other manager that the incidents made her uncomfortable, however no additional motion used to be taken towards the manager, the criticism mentioned. One night time all the way through remaining in August 2021, the manager allegedly reached out and pulled her hijab in part off her head.
The following day, the worker gave her two weeks’ realize. Chipotle did not agenda her for any shifts all the way through the ones two weeks despite the fact that different non-Muslim workers who submitted their realize endured to be scheduled for paintings all the way through that point, the criticism alleged.
The lawsuit claims that Chipotle violated federal civil rights regulation protective workers and process candidates from discrimination in response to faith, race, ethnicity, intercourse and nationwide beginning.
In its go well with, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission mentioned it needs Chipotle to institute insurance policies that supply equivalent employment alternatives for staff of all religions and pay damages to the worker.
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